Toni Lindahl, PSA-MP
Anyone who is familiar with my work knows I love to work in series. When I am inspired by a subject, I enjoy pursuing it until I have exhausted my interest. My pastels are diverse in subject matter, ranging from florals and figurative work to landscapes. I emphasize movement, patterns, light and shadow.
I became very interested in environmental issues, particularly with the diminishing rainforests. I wanted to try and portray the beauty of tropical plants. This inspired my Leaf Pattern Series. I love to showcase the way sunlight plays on the leaves and all the small compositions lurking within. This is a subject that has taken me to places like Hawaii, the Bahamas, Florida and Bermuda and has resulted in over 60 pieces which now reside in businesses and hospitals all over the country.
I love to communicate a sense of mystery through contrasting surfaces, movement and a variety of patterns. Nowhere is this more evident then in my Rock Series. I have always wanted to paint rocks. North Carolina is a beautiful state with incredible mountains but they are covered with trees. I finally had the opportunity to visit Arizona and Utah and was enthralled with the six canyons I witnessed. When I was on a boat on Lake Powell, I saw the beautiful Antelope Canyon. I snapped a photo of patterned rocks that reminded me of a Native American design. In the Pastel Journal juror Nancy Nowak noted: “It’s as if the weavings of the Native American people are embedded across those dynamic rock formations, echoing the past.”
People often question how an artist first discovers that they are drawn to painting. When I was a child, I found pieces of charcoal on the ground. I brought them home and started to draw with them. My mother bought me paint by numbers and she quickly discovered that I would do my own drawing over the picture so she bought me some canvasses and oil paint. In my late 20’s I decided I wanted to make my art a profession. When I started using pastels, I found my own distinct style and have never looked back.