Welcome,
Toni started making art early in her life. Her father had encouraged her as a child; he had hopes of her achieving the fame of his cousin Michigan artist Guy Palazzolo. Although self taught, she has focused on this goal throughout her life. She spent several years studying figure drawing and painting at Macomb Community College and the Birmingham-Bloomfield Art Association in Michigan. Toni attempts to focus primarily on color, value and composition to enhance the mood of her subjects and landscapes.
She is currently painting several series, One is called 'Searching for Identity" The intent of this body of work is to explore the inner attitudes and personalities of adolescent and adult subjects, and to search for the various aspects of their unresolved self-image and buried emotions, such as vulnerability, doubt, and insecurity, which is cloaked by their outer expressions of toughness and bravado.
In another sequence of paintings, her focus is on oversized still lifes. The large format gives her more space to explore the many items that are assembled on the canvass. Here she endeavors to pair related objects to illustrate an idea, thought, or design element or principle.
Painting outdoors each summer is another one of her passions, as she trys to capture the light and mood of the moment, working in a realistic manner yet striving to model the image in her own personal style to portray the ideas that she has about the subject. She wants her paintings to evoke a memory or recollection of someone or someplace in the viewer's eyes.
Since moving to Chelsea Michigan she has become very active in the local art scene, showing at many group shows in Ann Arbor and Jackson.