John Toffey grew up on Shel Silverstein and Chuck Jones, drawn to the subliminal horror beneath their work. That early appetite for the visceral eventually led him to a fascination in Otto Dix and Egon Schiele — artists who rendered the human condition gutturally. John is color blind, which means ink was always going to be their medium. Black and white is where he thinks.
They’ve spent a career obsessed with what a line can do — how far it can be pushed or finessed in capturing the spirit of a being. These days he’s been deep in Heinrich Kley, studying the lively gesture and composition that seems to vibrate with life.
His subjects are people, pets, and creatures of all kinds. In all of them he’s after the emotional caricature: not just what they look like, but what it feels like to embrace them in wonder.
BA, Visual Studies, Tyler School of Art — Philadelphia, PA
John Toffey Studio 