Howdy!

Toly is the artist who currently has is art up here, I interviewed him about two weeks ago, and Lauren Wagner graciously transcribed the interview. All the pictures were taken by Paul Litherland. If you have difficulty seeing them, click here.

Chris: Your art gives off a lot energy and a lot of emotion especially when you take into account the colors as well as your techniques. On the first look, you say Oh my God, and it's sort of like holy shit and then upon looking at it close you say ...ohhh okay

Toly: Well that [Teenagers in Heat] painting came from a misdialed phone call, this 18 year old girl called me up and she invited me out for a drink, and that's basically it. we were drinking 40's in the back of a depaneur. A lot of the paintings stem from that, misdirected phone calls or tense meetings with people or thoughts that I could encapsulate into one image.

Teenagers in heat - 20" x 30"

Chris: How did you get into painting?

Toly: I started doing illustration design at Dawson, I got into painting cause I was always reading comic books and I was inspired by comic art.

Chris: Anybody in particular?

Toly: At the beginning, every kid likes Boris, but I outgrew that and I got into other styles of paintings.

Chris: No I was thinking in terms of specific comics.

Toly: Comic books themselves? I like the Wolverine series the one John Jacobs did, but I stopped reading comics ages ago.

Chris: So then after Dawson?

Toly: I went to Concordia to study film animation, and moved on from there into live action.

Chris: And what brings you back to painting now, because as far as I know you are still working as a filmmaker.

Toly: I got sick, and I wanted to just sit around and do paintings, cause I've just lost a series of about 80 paintings, my ex-wife has them in Vancouver, so I basically needed a new portfolio, so I thought better sit down and do some work.

Chris: With this series, when did you start and when did you finish?

Toly: When did I start? I don't even remember. It took all winter, I started in the fall and finished it around the spring. I took a month off in between because I was getting bogged down; but I rifled out about 15 paintings and then I reached the plateau and then it was like a combination of all different works, and the last little while capturing the great spirit, and I took it from that time on I just started creating new pieces.