TONI DOILNEY
Textured Landscapes
As shapes collide and coil, twisting together in a spasm of color and form, you can almost start to see identifiable objects come together from behind the paint in Toni Doilney’s abstract paintings. And then, just as everything starts to come together, it shifts away, like a cloud tugged apart by a high-altitude gust.
“People tend to see a lot of things in my work, whether it’s trees or people or houses. Finding things that aren’t in my paintings seems to be part of the appeal of my work,” Doilney says from her Arizona studio. “Of course I do paint some things, like plants, houses, gardens or mountains, but I like to leave it all just a little ambiguous. It’s part of a natural process for me. I don’t want anything to be too defined or pretty.”
Doilney will be showing her newest abstract works at a show beginning January 24 at Paul Scott Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, a state that will play a role in Doilney’s newest pieces.
“When I moved to Arizona I was immediately taken by the texture of the landscape. It just captured me. The feel of the rocks, the dirt, the plants…it provided so many opportunities for my work,” she says. “I like to scratch at my surface, sort of
abrade it as I work. I don’t like the surface to be too slick and precise. It should have an impromptu feel to it.”
The artist paints with both brush and palette knife, as well as her hands and fingers, and is inspired by the land of places she’s lived, including California, Utah and Arizona. In Monsoon, she was inspired directly by Arizona’s dramatic and occasionally violent monsoons. “Even though it’s dreadfully hot here and you can’t do anything in the summer, the monsoons are just amazing to watch. They come in patches of black, with pieces here and there in the sky. I loved that idea of a black painting about monsoons, which is how I ended up with this one,” she says, adding that she is inspired by Milton Avery, Wolf Kahn and Jackson Pollock. “It was fun to take an idea like a storm and turn it into this idea with the black patches in the painting.”
“Toni’s innovative and unique style continues to grow in popularity. She spent years perfecting her visions, but it keeps evolving into something more and more exciting.”
—Paul Eubanks, owner, Paul Scott Gallery