Biography of Doilney Toni

Toni Doilney is a contemporary folk artist, living and working in Napa Valley. Her paintings are a unique blend of abstraction and expressive reality. She graduated magna cum laude from Northwestern University with a degree in Fine Arts and went on to do graduate study in primitive art traditions at American University.

Her paintings rely on a stratified perspective, a layering of textured surface and vibrant color, to give voice to the imagined landscape. There is a rhythm of forms, a tactile glimpse of house, tree or garden, that when pieced together, resemble fabric loosely thrown over the earth. The perceived simplicity and naivety strikes a chord with the viewer, as if they are calling up their own comfortable memory.

She has been juried into the 2009 and 2010 American Art Collector and received an Award of Merit at the 2009 American Women Artists National Juried Exhibition.

“Paintings, like poetry or music, are essential nutrients that help people sustain healthy lives. They’re not recreational pleasures or sidelines. They are tools that help us grasp the diversity of the world and its history, and explore the emotional capacities with which we navigate the world. They illuminate, they humble, they nurture, they inspire. They teach us to use our eyes and to know ourselves by knowing others.” Roberta Smith, art critic, NY Times

Toni Doilney: "Roberta Smith says what I feel about the importance of painting. I think that paintings act as prisms and can reveal so much about the artist, the viewer and the world."