| Enjoys grit, snark, pineapple pizza, and a fine pair of Crocs |
// my story
I'm Tobi, a self-taught artist in Southern California who loves gritty street textures, bold graphics, modern lines, Scandi, and mid-century design. My paintings are my exhales. My digital compositions, my playground.
I'm all about abstraction, wondering, wandering, turning pop songs into musical theater jams, and funk-dancing around the kitchen in jumpsuits & platform Crocs. I paint barefoot in my studio off the kitchen, sleep with a CPAP machine, and hate that plastic gets into the ocean. Mostly chill, but can pop off if the ginger flairs, I'm a bit Bob Ross meets Sam Kinison. It's a good time.
I believe in questions and am comfortable in the gray. I paint to express and design to play.
I'm all about abstraction, wondering, wandering, turning pop songs into musical theater jams, and funk-dancing around the kitchen in jumpsuits & platform Crocs. I paint barefoot in my studio off the kitchen, sleep with a CPAP machine, and hate that plastic gets into the ocean. Mostly chill, but can pop off if the ginger flairs, I'm a bit Bob Ross meets Sam Kinison. It's a good time.
I believe in questions and am comfortable in the gray. I paint to express and design to play.
Through years of family therapy as my wife and I have raised my nephew, now adopted adult son, I have discovered the effects of ADHD running through our ancestry and into my daily life. It's a beautiful challenge to own unique superpowers that also attack the fiber of your own basic functions.
These explorations and ultimate acceptances have explained so much and have garnered a wild understanding into the prolific spurts of my creative practice - Funny enough born from the maddening stress of parenting through the whirlwind of our often hilarious family psychosis. The good, the rough...it's a wild time here.
I am thankful to have the space of abstraction as a symbol of the unknown; a spinning journey of unexpected turns and flips, similar to the trails in our history and lives. We don't know what's coming or even what is. We are simply moving along and making decisions as we go. Ecclesiastical, honest, and a quite beautiful reality, of sorts. Making the most of what is in front of us, regardless of intent and plans, to find beauty in the chaos and chose joy no matter - through laughs and even through tears.
I began painting one maniacal night in 2014 and found it was where I could actually breathe, so I kept doing it. It's my space to let go and be, which is all I seek to offer in my art and what I hope it gives to those who get lost in it with me.
I create acrylic abstract paintings with palette knives, scrapers, and other mixed media on canvas panels, wood, and paper. I also create in digital mediums, graphic design, and collage. All inspired by a childhood growing up in the projects of South Boston - my dilapitated, concrete, fiberglass playground. Trains, brick, graffiti. Organic marks of humanity. The moodiness of the city captivates me. Especially in autumn and in the rain. These gritty textures are a thread throughout my abstract paintings that give my work the grungy street feeling that brings me back home. I have a deep love for brick walls, muted tones, pops of color, rooftops, lofts, and ripped up stickers on light poles. The lived-in among the modern...like the city streets of my heart.
I'm drawn to abstraction because it's undefined and allows me to express freely without the rules, self-constraints, doubts, and judgements that riddle me in daily life outside of art. It offers space to be messy and emotional with questions, often without resolve. I need that exploration and freedom. It's healthy and, for a moment, grounding.
These explorations and ultimate acceptances have explained so much and have garnered a wild understanding into the prolific spurts of my creative practice - Funny enough born from the maddening stress of parenting through the whirlwind of our often hilarious family psychosis. The good, the rough...it's a wild time here.
I am thankful to have the space of abstraction as a symbol of the unknown; a spinning journey of unexpected turns and flips, similar to the trails in our history and lives. We don't know what's coming or even what is. We are simply moving along and making decisions as we go. Ecclesiastical, honest, and a quite beautiful reality, of sorts. Making the most of what is in front of us, regardless of intent and plans, to find beauty in the chaos and chose joy no matter - through laughs and even through tears.
I began painting one maniacal night in 2014 and found it was where I could actually breathe, so I kept doing it. It's my space to let go and be, which is all I seek to offer in my art and what I hope it gives to those who get lost in it with me.
I create acrylic abstract paintings with palette knives, scrapers, and other mixed media on canvas panels, wood, and paper. I also create in digital mediums, graphic design, and collage. All inspired by a childhood growing up in the projects of South Boston - my dilapitated, concrete, fiberglass playground. Trains, brick, graffiti. Organic marks of humanity. The moodiness of the city captivates me. Especially in autumn and in the rain. These gritty textures are a thread throughout my abstract paintings that give my work the grungy street feeling that brings me back home. I have a deep love for brick walls, muted tones, pops of color, rooftops, lofts, and ripped up stickers on light poles. The lived-in among the modern...like the city streets of my heart.
I'm drawn to abstraction because it's undefined and allows me to express freely without the rules, self-constraints, doubts, and judgements that riddle me in daily life outside of art. It offers space to be messy and emotional with questions, often without resolve. I need that exploration and freedom. It's healthy and, for a moment, grounding.