Allison Rietta Art

These details reveal what often disappears from a photograph of the whole painting.

The soft grain of coloured pencil.

The velvety edge of pastel.

The transparency of watercolour.

The reflective quality of gold leaf.

Every layer is built slowly, allowing each mark to remain visible rather than being painted over. I’m increasingly interested in surfaces that reward time and attention—paintings that continue to unfold the longer you spend with them.

Geometry is the foundation of my practice—a living language through which rhythm, resonance, and perception unfold.

Through carefully composed colour and form, I create quiet spaces that invite contemplation and slow looking.

Each painting begins with structure but leaves room for intuition. Through layered colour, transparency, and rhythm, the work becomes less about depicting something than creating a space where perception can slow, attention can deepen, and meaning can remain beautifully open to mystery.

Welcome to my evolving body of work.

Good-bye 56... Hello 57!

Every birthday feels a little different.

Strangely, the older I get, the more possibilities I see. There are still things that scare me. Big dreams. Big leaps. A future that isn’t entirely mapped out.

But alongside that fear is something even stronger: optimism.

I’m more curious than ever about what’s ahead—new work, new places, new conversations, and all of the unexpected moments that shape a life.

Here’s to another year of making, learning, risking, and trusting the process.

I can’t wait to see how it unfolds.

✨

There is a particular energy in being between things—not where you were, but not yet where you are going. Liminal inhabits that space. Forms emerge, overlap and disappear; boundaries become uncertain. It is a work about transition, but also about the possibility held within the unknown.

I’ve always been interested in creating work that asks for a moment of stillness. Much of my practice begins with experiences that don’t have a fixed physical form—sound, vibration, sensation and moments of inner perception.

Geometry becomes a way of translating those experiences into something visible.
In that sense, perhaps my work has always existed in a liminal space: somewhere between an internal experience and its external expression. Between something felt and something seen.

I love seeing Liminal in a quiet interior like this. Away from the studio, it becomes less about the individual marks and shapes and more about the feeling the work creates within a space—a place for the eye to rest, wander, and perhaps discover something that isn’t immediately understood.

Liminal, 2026
Watercolour, acrylic, oil pastel, coloured pencil and pastel on paper
22.5 × 30 inches

✨Liminal describes a threshold—a space between one state and another. It is the moment when something has begun to shift, but has not yet fully arrived. There is uncertainty in that space, but also possibility: a suspension of what is known, where something new can begin to emerge.

This work began with that sense of being somewhere in between.

The forms overlap, interrupt and move through one another. Some appear solid and grounded, while others feel as though they are dissolving or only partially present. There is structure, but there is also instability—a composition that never completely settles.

Perhaps that is what draws me to liminal spaces. They ask us to exist, however briefly, without knowing exactly what comes next.

Liminal, 2026
Watercolour, acrylic, oil pastel, coloured pencil and pastel on paper
22.5 × 30 inches

Something is slowly coming into view.

After more than 25 hours of coloured pencil and pastel, this new work is beginning to find its rhythm. Repeated forms move through one another; colours overlap, deepen and shift as each new layer is added.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what happens when I slow my process down—when an image is allowed to emerge through repetition rather than immediacy.

This one has a name, and a story, but I’m keeping both to myself for just a little longer.

25 hours in, and still building.

This work is being created entirely in coloured pencil and pastel on paper—layer over layer, shape over shape, slowly building colour, texture and transparency.

There is something about working at this pace that has shifted my relationship to the image. Nothing can be rushed. Each passage is built gradually, allowing the marks of the hand to remain visible and the colours to deepen through repetition.

Still very much a work in progress… and many more hours to go.

Limited Editions

I’m preparing Diluted Sounds as a very limited edition print.

Produced by Image Foundry in Toronto using museum-quality archival materials.

Subscribers to my newsletter will hear about the release first. Join my newsletter to receive first access before the edition is released.

Something has shifted.

For the past several months I’ve been working almost exclusively in coloured pencil and pastel—a much slower process than my watercolour paintings, built gradually through hundreds of layers of colour.

This new work is called Diluted Sounds.
More to come over the next few days.

Diluted Sounds is my latest work.

Built entirely in coloured pencil and pastel, this piece reflects a quieter pace—one shaped by layers, texture, and the slower rhythm of summer.

I’m delighted to share that it will soon be released as a very limited edition print, produced by the award-winning print house in Toronto.

Newsletter subscribers will receive first access before the public release.

Join the studio newsletter via the link in my bio.