There’s an upwardness, a posture, a strength of character that always comes through in her dialectical exploration of femininity–think: vulnerability and resilience, pain and pleasure, glamour and simplicity, all playing equal and opposing parts in the performance of womanhood that still achieves harmony. Even in her self-described shyness, there’s a confidence and assertiveness she’s still gleaned from her mother. “My mom is a Gemini. And we all know what Geminis are,” she adds mischievously. “But I’m glad because she really shaped me for the world because now I know that the world is ruthless –with love, of course, I was shown that.”
But, ultimately, she adds, “The world is up to you. [You don’t have to] be beaten and battered, you can decide for yourself.” When looking at Tony’s work and outlook, that might be the most definitive art statement you could create for her. And an artist statement reflective of her desire to return to her younger self, to that precious time of omnipotence and powerlessness.
“I had to be chaotic. You have to lose your mind in order to arrive at a calm place. You have to go through the turbulence of life in order to find solace. You need to go through the wretched pain to find happiness.”
You get the sense as Tony speaks that life is almost like one big group project, the intention to produce a cohesive whole with many disparate and moving and clashing parts.
She describes the isolation she felt growing up, as the only girl amongst her older brothers, and the jarring transition from elokshin to the suburbs of Cape Town. “Loneliness was very much a part of my operation but I found community on the internet strangely enough. Like blogging and Tumblr, that was my space and that’s where I met a lot of my friends.” One of her first collaborations was documenting urban life with her friend, romanticising the idiosyncrasies of their lives with the eternal unifier: good music. The internet became a place of refuge, to meet people with the same quirks as her, separated only in the physical dimension of distance but connected on a deeper level through HTML code.