Biography

Patrizia was born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1963.

In 1982 Patrizia completed a two-year diploma course in Applied Arts and Sciences at the West Australian College of Advanced Education (now Edith Cowan University), which covered a diverse range of art practices including painting, poetry, filmmaking and theatre.

From 1984 to 1986 she studied Fine Art at Curtin University of Technology. She majored in painting, doing a minor in sculpture. She successfully completed her degree in 1986, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art.

Upon graduating, Patrizia spent 6 months travelling back-packer-style around Europe, England and Ireland. The marvellous architecture and sense of history was to provide inspiration for her painting when she returned to Australia near the end of 1987.

Throughout the next few years, Patrizia continued painting on old holland blinds as well as, occasionally, on unstretched canvas, and had her work included in many group exhibitions.

In 1992, she and artist Gina Cinanni held a two-person exhibition at the Fremantle Arts Centre. Three paintings from the 'Affinities' exhibition were included in a book published by the Visual Culture Research Unit of the Curtin University of Technology about Western Australian painters. ('The Painted Image: Western Australian Art #1', ed. Ted Snell, 1991).

In November of 1994 Patrizia's solo exhibition 'Doors Windows Walls' was held at Artplace. The exhibition showcased several large oil paintings on Holland blinds, as well as some small studies, all linked by architectural themes.

In February of 1996, two group exhibitions were organised showcasing the work of Six Western Australian figurative painters. The two shows ran concurrently - one at Artplace in Perth, Western Australia, the other at Beaver Galleries in Canberra. Patrizia was included as one of these six.

1998 saw the launch of Patrizia's second solo exhibition at Artplace. 'Heavy Metal', a series of paintings thematically linked by their exploration of depicting metal objects in various landscapes.

'Ai Margini' (On the Margins) a group exhibition showcasing the work of artists with Italian heritage, shown at the John Curtin Gallery in the year 2000, was the last exhibition Patrizia participated in before voluntarily withdrawing from showing any of her work for the next five years.

During that time she ran a successful small business with her partner Graham Taylor designing and manufacturing concrete garden ornaments and water features, also designing a range of contemporary concrete art pieces for a Melbourne manufacturing company, and writing and co-illustrating a children's picture book (again with her partner Graham Taylor).

In 2005 she began experimenting with plaster and concrete as a fine art medium. Using a mix of cement and cellulose fibre developed by her partner Graham Taylor for a commercial line, which fortunately for her did not eventuate, Patrizia immersed herself once more into making art. The new works echoed the use of architectural motifs found in her paintings from the 1980's and 90's while bypassing the figurative and representational techniques that were such a staple of her previous work. Described by the artist as '3 dimensional wall works', the monochrome sculpted 'paintings' are in essence concrete monoliths - the 'fibre cement' possessing all the characteristics of actual concrete but having the advantage of being very light weight.

The resulting works in this new medium culminated in a solo exhibition in May 2007 at the Showcase Space gallery, at the TAFE campus in Northbridge, WA. The show entitled 'Meditations' centred around the distillation of simple geometric configurations in both grey and cream coloured concrete. The wall-hung sculptural works evoked the Zen philosophy of simplicity and immediacy, and incorporated found objects such as rusted metal and lead in their structure.

Having received a Project Development Grant from the Department of Culture and the Arts in 2008 enabled her to mount another solo exhibition at the Showcase Space Gallery in September of that year. 'Urban Evolution' consisted of concrete wall- and free-standing sculptures, a floor installation and several paintings, a medium the artist had eschewed for several years. The theme in this exhibition revolved around obsolete industrial sites, the waste generated by contemporary society and the cultural amnesia that occurred as a result of mindless consumerism.

She is currently involved in a group film project headed by eminent West Australian artist Stuart Elliott. 'The Underpass Motel' is a series of vignettes based on Elliott's concept of a fictional motel "on the edge of the world". Working in conjunction with her partner Graham Taylor, their contribution to the project, a 7 minute film titled 'Mortal Coil' uses a combination of constructed photographs and 3D digital animation. This is her first (and hopefully not her last) film project. Patrizia is also working toward her next solo exhibition to be held at Gallery East, North Fremantle, in March of 2010.

For information and images of Patrizia Tonello's most recent work, go to Portfolio.

© 2007 - 2009 Patrizia Tonello
Website by Graham Taylor