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     Cheryl Tonty has exhibited widely throughout the greater Bay Area, including solo exhibits at The Pacific Grove Art Center and the Olive Hyde Gallery (Fremont, CA), as well as group shows at galleries and museums including The Berkeley Art Center, The Triton Museum (Santa Clara, CA), Southern Exposure Gallery (San Franscisco, CA), Hatley Martin Gallery (San Francisco, CA), the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, and The San Francisco Women Artist's Gallery. In juried competition, she is the recipient of numerous juror's awards.
         A self-taught artist, Tonty currently resides in Campbell, California where she is working on new creations.

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     Bring home the vision by ordering newly available prints of Tonty's artwork. For more information, visit the Cheryl Tonty Gallery Shop, or send the artist a request through the Contact page.

ARTIST's STATEMENT ________

     After exploring all different kinds of drawing media, I have found a strong affinity for conte crayon, with it's rich tonal varieties and intriguing possibilities for manipulation. I enjoy the immediacy of drawing, and the particular abstract qualities of representational imagery in black and white have always held a fascination for me. My work often depicts a surreal world held together by a fluid, fabric-like matter that engulfs and threatens to devour the network of images.
         Figures, anthropomorphized animals, and objects both prosaic and bizarre are frequent inhabitants. I try to infuse the drawings with a nightmarish emotional urgency, and often explore conditions such as fear, confusion and the craving for states of mental refuge within the inescapable anxieties of everyday life. Also, I hope the viewer will pick up a certain dark humor, as I enjoy playing around with normally benign objects in menacing circumstances. Art, for me, has always provided both the exhilaration of the creative process as well as a convenient repository for waking dreams and nightmares.