BIOGRAPHY: Toni-Ann Ballenden
Toni-Ann was born in Cape Town in 1951. She has been teaching and producing art since qualifying cum laude in fine art in 1993 at the Witwatersrand Technikon in Johannesburg. Her work is found in many private and public collections including the Anglo American and Sasol corporate collections. She has won several awards including first prize in a national art competition.
Toni-Ann is currently preparing her fifth solo exhibition at Fried Contemporary in Pretoria. She has also held solo exhibitions at Upstairs@Bamboo Gallery in Melville (‘Balance’, 2003), the Millenium Gallery in Pretoria (‘Inside Outside’, 2001), The First Gallery in Johannesburg (‘Alone’, 1995) curated by Neil Dundas, and her Graduation Show at the ICA Gallery in Newton, Johanneburg, in 1993. She has participated in many group shows at galleries in Johanneburg including Art Space Gallery, Museum Africa, Gordart Gallery, Stewart Gallery, Gallery on Tyrone, as well as in Pretoria, Grahamstown, and Chicago, USA.
She has also been involved in a number of community projects, including working with APS Paper Prayers embroiderers for her show at the Gordart Gallery in 2004. She also taught drawing skills at the Keiskamma Art Project in Hamburg, Eastern Cape, with another groups of self-empowerment embroiderers in 2007. She also took a foundation course in Art Therapy in 2001.
The content of Toni-Ann’s work is inspired by her journey through many personal and external life experiences.
