Tonya Engel

Tonya Engel is a self-taught artist born in Texas and has established studios in New York, Paris, Miami, Austin and  Houston. Heavily influenced by folk artists of the Deep South and Masters like Mark Chagall, Frida Kahlo, and Romare Beardon, her contemporary style engages figurative form mixed with emotion & expressionistic boldness.

Process: I approach each piece intuitively. Like a dance, I engage the canvas with movement and strokes and scrumbles, and washes. I then step back from the easel and take in the random swoops and drips. A bend of an elbow, a hint of an eye or the slope of an organic shape that occurs after turning the canvas another direction can dictate what will happen next. From beginning to end I’m able to allow each painting

to arrive at its completion through intuition.  I use Oil, and mixed media and sometimes include collage or text to convey a message.

My art, for me, has become an opportunity to share how I see life, humor & the human spirit. My stories celebrate the joyful and deeply emotional moments as well as the mundane and unremarkable making us human.