Allie Biswas interviews Ruth Root on the occasion of Root's exhibition Old, Odd and Oval at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut, on view through April 3, 2016.

Root comments: "'Odd', to me, means 'hard to describe'. The paintings are almost like flattened sculptures that have been turned into paintings. Otherwise, they could be thought of as paintings that are sculptural and have their backs to the wall. Sometimes, when a painting is 'odd', it is a surprise and also unfamiliar. Often, a goal of mine in the studio is to surprise myself, and make something work that I didn’t think would work. The result is frequently a quality that I like."