I CAN FEEL THE TRUTH SOMEWHERE OVER THERE. HERE BEYOND FURTHER., is a new body of work that is a combination of Toni Gallo's studio practice and her study of mediation as both a yoga instruction and longtime practitioner. Coming together in a multimedia exhibition of painting, sound installation and mediation. The work speaks of the weight we allow external forces to have, distractions and ideologies to tell stories of our identities through the reels of imagery in our comings and goings like an endless tide from our active minds. Her works are suggestive, figurative, landscape abstractions, naturally uncovering paradox through the balance between polished and raw, busy and calm, intuitive and intentional. Each painting is a different path to the same place. Once paradox is reflected back to us, observation begins to extinguish the perception of duality and all things connect.

 

Toni's paintings are a practice in expression of capturing a moment of connectivity as the eternal present unrolls in its nonlinear nature. It is as thick and awkward as it is effortless and natural. This discovery is the arrival point of the dissolution of duality. Anything in everything. Everything in anything. It's all in there if you look. Impressions that leave stains. Ghost impressions.

 

Nothing is permanent but it all leaves a mark. The moment of construction is the beginning of decay.

 

Artists refer to their work in the studio as a practice. Yogis refer to their work on the mat as practice. Meditation is a practice. Any practice to access self and its expression is meditation. The reason art offers the inarticulate, the magic, the otherness is the way it's made. It's the practice that matters, because although it may be fleeting the momentary connectivity that occurs to make the art is of that present moment of awareness, a connection to self under the ego, giving access to the deepest unchanging truth. It is your vital energy made permanent and connected to the past, present and future. The work in I CAN FEEL THE TRUTH SOMEWHERE OVER THERE. HERE BEYOND FURTHER. invites you to share in that experience.

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Toni Gallo grew up in Minnesota drawing dinosaurs and pond life, graduated from Perpich Center for Arts Education and headed to California where she received her B.A. in studio art and was awarded a scholarship to attend the California State University intensive painting program in Italy following graduation. After returning home she continued making and exhibiting art in Minneapolis and between 2008-2012 was a member of Rosalux Gallery. Over the past 6 years, she integrated yoga and meditation practices with her studio work. The combination of practices has formed a body of work exploring consciousness on an aesthetic level. Toni currently lives and works in NE Minneapolis with her husband and two children.

 

Toni Gallo is a fiscal year 2019 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.