Meredith Toto

My paintings consider the things we can destroy: family heritage, personal memories, relationships, the body, the environment. I find my inspiration in what others consider the most gruesome of images and, rather than glorify the horrific elements, I seek to transform them--inviting viewers to discover beauty or solace or enlightenment through the artwork's intimacy. My artwork can be expressed as the binarism "Pretty Disease" The viewer is seduced with the loveliness of a captured moment and then forced to look again, confronting the eerie underside of what seemed no more than a luscious depiction of sweetness and light.