I am very pleased to announce that my painting ‘Pastel Overtone’ has been shortlisted for the VAO (Visual Arts Open) Award for UK and International Emerging Artists 2023.
Pastel Overtone, 2023. 30” x 20” (76 × 51 cm) Watercolour, acrylic and paper collage on art board.
Allison Rietta is a Toronto-based abstract artist whose work explores mystic geometry as a language of energy, rhythm, and perception. She began her full-time artistic practice in 2020 following a 25-year career as a creative director in branding and marketing within the graphic design industry. Rietta holds an honours degree in Environmental and Industrial Design from the Ontario College of Art and Design, and furthered her studies through the Turps Painting School (2022–23).
Drawing on her spiritual practice of meditation and sound healing, Rietta’s work is informed by the resonant qualities of sacred sound and the symbolic structures of geometry found in nature and architecture. Through repetition, layering, and variation, her compositions translate vibration into visual form, where colour, shape, and pattern function as carriers of rhythm and inner experience. Her practice moves between precise, structured arrangements and more intuitive, atmospheric fields, reflecting a dialogue between control and fluidity, and between inner and outer perception.
Rietta has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across Toronto, New York, London (UK), and Basel (Switzerland). She has been twice longlisted for the Jackson’s Painting Prize (UK) and shortlisted for the Visual Art Open International Emerging Artist Award. Her work is held in private and public collections, including a major acquisition by the Holbrook Danville boutique hotel in the United States. Her work has also been featured in CasaFacile, one of Italy’s leading interior design publications.
