A bold eggplant shade of purple meets a field of amber yellow in this playful acrylic by Milly Ristvedt. A thin linear oblong of red pierces the center, anchoring the geometric painting suggesting an abstract landscape.

Milly Ristvedt (b. 1942, Kimberley, BC) MA, RCA, began her career in Toronto in 1964 after studies with Takao Tanabe and Roy Kiyooka at the Vancouver School of Art. Ristvedt credits Tanabe with helping her refine her ability to see in first-year composition, and Roy Kiyooka as her most important educational influence. Kiyooka introduced Ristvedt to the paintings of contemporary artists such as Kenneth Noland, Frank Stella, and Morris Louis who were working in series. This altered Ristvedt’s approach to production in the early years. However, while Ristvedt admires the discipline of seriality she prefers to set her parameters after the fact thus allowing exciting and unexpected changes to reveal themselves in the course of painting.

Over her long career, Ristvedt has had over 50 solo exhibitions. An advocate for artist's rights, Ristvedt was awarded the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. She completed an MA in Art History at Queen's University in 2011.

Ristvedt's abstract, acrylic canvases are held in private, corporate and public collections including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and Harvard University.

Ristvedt is represented exclusively by Oeno Gallery.