Toni Ardizzone (USA) is a full-time artist and 2020 MFA candidate at Florida State University. She is the tenth artist who is involved in our terrace in the Palimpsest Project [6]. Palimpsest is a mural painting residency that invites emerging artists to perform visual dialogues between the works of each other in the terrace of ´ace. Toni’s mural will add new images and conversations among previous interventions which were begun by the Colombian Felipe Garcia and continued by Kiik Create (Puerto Rico-USA), Buck Teeth Girls Club (Canada), ALMA (Brazil), Cosby Hayes (USA) and Toia Grehan (Argentina) and Jenny Ustick (USA).

ARTIST STATEMENT

I paint with ferocity. Using a vibrant colour palette, bold brushwork, and industrious materials, my work exposes several years of experience as a commercial/residential painter, spray booth technician and muralist. Equal parts contemplation and impulse, my paintings are the result of a laborious studio practice.
In my most recent work, the boundary between 2D media and sculpture is undefined.  Combining domestic textiles, hurricane debris, photographs, and found objects with drawing and painting, I transform discarded materials into curated assemblages. Wildly patterned fabrics allow me to embrace morose and macabre themes with vigour, while making connections between survival, death, and trauma.
These dense picture planes describe an investigation into entropic subject matter, grounded in decomposing hospital flowers. Collected as tokens of my own memento mori, the weakened blooms, curling leaves, and fading colours reveal themselves as symbols of aftermath and recovery. Exploring the destructive path of the recent Hurricane Michael has helped contextualize my personal experience of survival. Mixing collected debris and large-scale colour photos, the artwork emerges as documentation. It is met with my vivacious approach and obliterated forms, creating work that is unapologetic.

My murals are identified by the same level of exuberance; They are the record of the performance of making them. Accidental drips, gestural lines, and evident brush and roll technique present the memory of the human hand.

Toni presented her mural painting in the ´aceNITE of November 20th, a piece in itself that at the same time interacts and dialogues with the previous murals.