Wow! Mandy Toniolo's stunning hand painted chairs will become the topic of conversation at your next dinner party
Amanda Toniolo
Mandy’s home in a beautiful leafy suburb of Melbourne is wall to wall artwork. The sunlight streams through the enormous floor to ceiling windows of the open plan living room that overlooks a carefully tended garden and a divine little workshop. Large enough, Mandy assures me, to paint about 6 chairs at a time.The environment is serene in a creatively dynamic way. Mandy’s presence in electric and her energy and enthusiasm are contagious.
We sit at a large table surrounded by a collection of her fabulous hand painted chairs and start to chat about creating, parenting and life in general. Mandy and her husband are both artists and parents to 3 boys in their teens and early twenties.
In 2009 feeling like they were losing their creative mojo, the couple applied to work as artists in residence in Brooklyn, New York. The way Mandy talks about the environment there makes it sound totally bohemian but she describes it as dynamic and very creative. While her husband used the experience to develop his painting, Mandy wanted to develop her painting and apply her works to everyday objects. In an era of mass production the chair represented the perfect utilitarian object to transform from ordinary into a gorgeous work of art.
Mandy’s chairs have evolved through continued exploration and experimentation and are currently a unique combination of mixed media preserved under a hand painted semi gloss lacquer, giving them a beautiful patina effect and real durability.
In 2009 feeling like they were losing their creative mojo, the couple applied to work as artists in residence in Brooklyn, New York. The way Mandy talks about the environment there makes it sound totally bohemian but she describes it as dynamic and very creative. While her husband used the experience to develop his painting, Mandy wanted to develop her painting and apply her works to everyday objects. In an era of mass production the chair represented the perfect utilitarian object to transform from ordinary into a gorgeous work of art.
Mandy’s chairs have evolved through continued exploration and experimentation and are currently a unique combination of mixed media preserved under a hand painted semi gloss lacquer, giving them a beautiful patina effect and real durability.