collage: toby penney
When Is Too Much Not Enough
Mixed media and reclaimed materials on cardstock
60 x 60 inches
about the artist: toby penney
Toby Penney is a southern artist working in paint, photography, printmaking & multiple sculpture media. She creates work accepting, even glorifying simple objects & fleeting moments. Battling over-consumption is her growing pursuit. At the same time, she also address the non-material that we collect in identity and memory.
She works to accomplish this goal visually by combining patterns, textures, and moments as they come to her, most often via reclaimed fabrics & objects.
Her purpose, in the studio, is to take what she has and turn it into what she wants, via experimental and traditional application and combine this with what history offers as a lesson. Building things from the ground up, with raw materials or repurposing, isn't easy, but it is real. It has weight, depth, meaning, texture and heart. When working with raw truths instead of glossing things over, she feels she is investing in herself, skill set, end product, and her community. It is rarely easy but definitely worth it.
Toby enjoys developing relationships with other creative people. She exhibits internationally and with galleries in the U.S.. Her work has been on the cover of Professional Artist Magazine and Hellbent Magazine and has been included in numerous other publications.
She holds a sculpture degree from Middle Tennessee State University.
Outside of her personal studio practice, Toby is an instructor to both children & adults, artist mentor, & community arts volunteer.
Toby is the director of Otrera Arts Inc., (501c3) and leads community based and artist career support programming with an emphasis on women, working class and under-served, parent and disenfranchised artists. Over the last few years, programming through Otrera, and in conjunction with Roaming Studio (a teaching studio), has seen the enactment of classes for homeschool, special needs, emerging artist, children, and young adult students. Classes focus on art process, history, and career development and always make scholarship opportunities a priority. Toby also instigated the establishment of the Frankfort Arts Alliance, supporting the coming together of dozens of artists for community participation events and public engagement with local artist’s work.
https://www.tobypenneyartist.com/
https://www.facebook.com/OtreraArts/
