Toni Southwell explores everyday conversations through paint. The mundane, the challenges and the throw away thoughts can all be found in her portfolio. Layers often are a part of Toni’s painted works that are representative of something deeper. They are intriguing and inviting. Each painting has approximately 20 layers of paint, wiped, dripped, dropped and splattered allowing for varying ways of reflecting on the everyday depending on personal experience.
Toni also is currently having a love affair with quirky drawings and she develops interesting conversations through them. Exploration of the passionate and sometimes brokenness of human nature is a regular subject matter of hers. The drawings are somewhat naively obscure but intriguing at the same time.
She has a BAVA and a Dip Ed in Visual Arts and currently lives on the Mid North Coast of NSW on the Kalang River in the Bellingen Shire, although she has lived in Sydney, Wollongong and Melbourne. Toni works permanently at the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery as Programs Facilitator whilst developing her own creative practice.