Meet Abstract Artist Arnold Toulon – The Art of Joy

FIFTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD abstract artist/designer, Arnold Toulon, has spent most of his life working at his craft one brush stroke at a time. He’s been drawing and designing ever since he was a child growing up in his native Dominica. His artistic talent has taken him across the globe but one thing’s for certain: hints of his Caribbean heritage are found in his vast body of work.

Toulon left high school in 1979 after displaying promising talent in art, receiving a scholarship three years later to study art at the Edna Manley School of Visual Arts in Jamaica. During his four years there, he did courses in textiles, graphics, jewellery, sculpture and painting.

“I was very much influenced by Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso’s surrealist styles,” Toulon said. “But I also studied African art, sculptures and designs as well as remnants from the Kalinago culture. I always felt that there was a need to marry both the European style of art with the reality of being a Caribbean artist. That was my biggest quest.”

After returning to Dominica in 1986, Toulon was unsuccessful in landing a teaching job, so he did the next best thing: became self-employed and put his artistic experiences to use.

He began hand-painting tee shirts as a means of “going back to a very raw sense because my works are usually very abstract”, travelling throughout the Caribbean to sell his tee shirts as he desperately tried to establish himself and a niche market.

“At that point, I was confused as to what area of expertise to specialize in after having learned so much in art school,” Toulon admitted.

Over the next few years, Toulon participated in many exhibitions albeit on a grander scale than the ones he participated in while at secondary school in Dominica and during the years he spent at art school in Jamaica.

But one of the most pivotal moments in his life came after he contracted a bacterial infection resulting in him developing a bleeding ulcer, which was misdiagnosed as a peptic ulcer. He came close to death, he said, and recalled the experience he had while lying on his hospital bed.

“I saw all of my colour fall away,” Toulon said, sadly. “After leaving the hospital, I worked on a series entitled “The Rebirth Series”, which was done in black and white. Many people wanted to buy those three pieces. However, I figured they had so much potential as images. So I took a small loan and went to Barbados and got 500 prints of each done, which I eventually sold.”

Between 1992 and 1994, Toulon was invited on different occasions to showcase his work to a wide audience in Guadeloupe, which was his biggest break at the time. During that period, he moved to Saint Lucia.

Due to the good word that was spread about his art that was featured in Guadeloupe a few years earlier, Toulon was invited to an exhibition in Paris, France, where he was the only artist from the English-speaking Caribbean among the eight artists invited. An exhibition in Cuba and Austria followed and Toulon eventually opened a gallery with fellow artist, Brian Toussaint, at Bois d’Orange.

“During all these travels, I got many chances to establish myself as a Caribbean artist,” Toulon explained. “Despite being from Dominica, my roots are spread across the Caribbean. So that’s when my work really began to take on a stronger self-imagery.”

Around that time, Toulon began developing the “scratch technique”, which is basically scratching into the surface of the paint on canvas with an ice pick. With the use of old phone cards and credit cards, Toulon’s scratch technique proved how limitless the creative realm of art is.

Toulon later moved his pieces to Inner Gallery, started by fellow artist, Rachael Du Boulay. He also did a few exhibitions in Grenada, Dominica, Antigua and the Dominican Republic. But his travels slowed after the global recession hit and sponsorship for the agencies that invited him to showcase his work was slashed.

“It’s been a long and tough journey,” Toulon noted. “With the recession hitting us, I just decided to do shows in the Caribbean. However, I didn’t expect the positive response I got in Antigua as it relates to sales. The Caribbean art market is very unpredictable. But it is based on hype. You have to do great promotions and have a great product.”

Toulon, who has been living and working in Saint Lucia for over two decades and has lived most of his life outside Dominica, said he has done many life study drawings and sketches over the years, which have helped in strengthening his skills.

Although he has specialized in oils for quite some time, Toulon is presently using acrylics because they allow for more looseness. While he admitted to occasionally taking quite some time to really begin working on a piece, he said that once he does begin, he just keeps going. But it’s better than using oils, anyway.

“When you’re using oils, you either have to use a slapdash technique or have spaces between drying of colours. However, with acrylic, I’m able to work on multiple pieces simultaneously,” Toulon said.

Many organizations and schools have benefitted from Toulon’s philanthropic side. He has donated paintings for raffles and other causes and also visited schools to give motivational speeches.

This year, Toulon’s work made a big splash at the Arts Village as part of the Saint Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival. The feedback, he said, has been overwhelmingly positive. However, it is the upcoming annual Emancipation Exhibition being hosted from today through September 17 that brings Toulon a great deal of satisfaction.

“It’s a very big honour for me to be one of the featured artists this year. It says a lot about the country that I’ve chosen to live in and respect. I never get treated differently because I’m from a different country,” the artist said.

During the exhibition, Toulon, whose artwork is on display at Inner Gallery, Anse Chastanet Resort and Jambe de Bois, will be showcasing pieces from the past and present. So committed to the upcoming exhibition was he that he actually left every other project he was working on behind to finish pieces for the display. He says he’s focused on capturing the audience’s attention.

“My work has a lot of eroticism in it. It’s not pornography, though. But I want people to feel like they’ve found something new when they look at my work. I want my work to make them smile, laugh, cry, think and talk about it,” the artist explained.

He added: “I like to connect with people, so naturally, the painting is supposed to do that. I like when my work brings people joy. I’m not a sad painter. In fact, if I’m in a depressed mood and I start painting with that mindset, somewhere along the way, after I would have gone beyond the difficult stage, elation comes. So the painting finishes happier than it started.”

Having faced many challenges in his art career, Toulon cautions budding and prospective artists against getting into the business without first having been committed and setting their priorities right.

“You must be willing to spend some serious money on paintbrushes, paint and canvases. Materials for art are expensive and that’s the first challenge you face. So I would advise people with an interest in art to buy their materials bit by bit. Also, read about art history and try to determine what areas attract you and get to know them better,” Toulon explained.