Artist Statement

By: Toya
Other authors: Toya Northington
Submitted: 12/01/2008

I am both a painter and a printmaker. In my work, I seek to bring attention to the oscillations of life felt by the “universal woman”, by exploring the perennial contradictions that make up the female experience, and the means, women find to endure the currents of societal expectations, felt in the face of their own metamorphosis, from adolescence to adulthood.

With influences stemming from my studies of French Impressionism, and both the Japanese and abstract art forms, my work is empowered by the responsibilities that women have as wives, mothers and life educators, in the face of what is both an internal and external struggle to adapt, to an ever-changing set of roles in society.

Exploring issues such as, transitioning and the "loss of time", ownership and acceptance of self, and more recently the "Western" commoditization of sexuality, spirituality and personal beliefs. I work in the format of Eastern screens or large panels with the mediums dye sublimation, digital photography and digital painting, creating large-scale paintings that I use to recycle the imagery for the creation of derivative, digital compositions or the next generation of dye sublimation paintings. My works are composed of stretching polyester(s), and often use new age materials such as, shrink wrap instead of canvas, to mimic the concept of packaging and consumer economics.

Far from representing the victimization of women, my work embodies both the chaos and conquest of the experience that is “woman”.