Toni Cogdell was born in Bristol, England, in 1979. While exhibiting her work across the UK as well as selling internationally, she has honed her process and techniques combining acrylic, spray paint, collage and oil paint to give voice to her expression; a personal style seeking to connect with the world around her. Painting intuitively, in the space between figuration and abstraction Toni finds a freedom which allows her to go deeper into the intangible substance of the psyche and human condition without restricting or enforcing definitive ideas. Pulling recognisable truths into the work while opening to the unknown, her paintings are looking for a balance, a coming together of moments, a kind of imperfect beauty.
“Through my paintings I explore human emotion, sense and memory; facets of our inner world piecing together to make us who we are. Humans built from the inside out. I've always been pulled toward making art that expresses some of the intangible, mysterious currents of our minds and inner lives. I am on a pursuit to make contemporary portraits that dig beneath the skin to swim in our consciousness, to reveal our stories and the marks we make on ours and others' lifelines, the traces of ourselves we give, revisit, and leave behind. How we live on the inside and how this connects to our outer lives.” – Toni Cogdell
Nature is a main influence of Toni’s work. The power and movement of nature is her fulcrum; “I return to it, lean into it, to remind myself what's important, who we are when stripped of the chaos of society.” As well as nature, poetry and music inspire Toni. The expression she feels and gets when hearing/reading a piece Toni resonates with is then reflected onto her works.
Toni’s upcoming solo exhibition with TAP Galleries Ltd will include an exciting collection of new works as well as a selection of previous works created in 2020.
The works in this exhibition have been on journeys of their own, each hoping to reach a kind of harmony from the clutter of days spent painting, leaning toward something out of reach, looking to find traces of us interconnecting, communing. Through paint on canvas is an action to blend chaos into beauty, the kind of beauty that tilts on the curve of a wing as it swoops into water and then sky; below, above. It's a call to find an opening, a space to breathe, an acceptance of the multitude of landscapes within us and the places in the world we may belong as we arrive and depart.
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Do you know there's no journey? We're arriving and departing all the time
Paul Weller (song: Bowie)Can we track the shape of a life, the way we move through time and emotion; seasons, cycles and circles like birds chasing the sky, always returning to ourselves.
Us.
Moving minds inside moving bodies.
Past, present and future somehow coexisting, happening now, through us, as we navigate our inner and outer worlds, seeking to locate ourselves within the things we love. This chaos of living, the bigger than us ebb and flow of experience, time and the unknown continually rises to meet me.
I let it in.
I paint to remember, I paint to discover, I paint in search of things lost or not yet understood. Pieces of me, pieces of you, who we are from the inside out, moment to moment, in no linear measurement and continuously remade from the sum of our parts. Can our journeys be traced or do they leave no trail other than a tug in the heart, a gentle shift toward something new. Something alchemised.
The works in this exhibition have been on journeys of their own, each hoping to reach a kind of harmony from the clutter of days spent painting, leaning toward something out of reach, looking to find traces of us interconnecting, communing. Through paint on canvas is an action to bend chaos into beauty, the kind of beauty that tilters on the curve of a wing as it swoops into water and then sky; below, above. It's a call to find an opening, a space to breathe, an acceptance of the multitude of landscapes within us and the places in the world we may belong as we arrive and depart.
- Exhibition Statement by Toni Cogdell
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What is the story/theme/inspiration/idea behind your work/collection?
Rising, 2021Through my paintings I explore human emotion, sense and memory; facets of our inner world piecing together to make us who we are. Humans built from the inside out. I've always been pulled toward making art that expresses some of the intangible, mysterious currents of our minds and inner lives. I am on a pursuit to make contemporary portraits that dig beneath the skin to swim in our consciousness, to reveal our stories and the marks we make on ours and others' lifelines, the traces of ourselves we give, revisit, and leave behind.
How we live on the inside and how this connects to our outer lives.
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