Tonya was born and raised in Barbados. Her childhood home was like a life-sized sketch book where she could experiment freely. As a child she doodled flowers on bedsheets, painted a mural on the bedroom door and rearranged her parents’ home decor - often in the middle of the night when the itch for creativity struck! Tonya’s parents always encouraged her creativity.

From that young age she was aware that an environment had a direct impact on mood and behaviour.

Tonya completed a Bachelors Degree of Fine Art Painting at Wimbledon School of Art in London, UK. After this she returned to Barbados to teach Painting at Barbados Community College. During this time Tonya maintained a studio practice including solo and group art exhibitions in Barbados and internationally. She put her art career to rest and moved to Toronto, Canada with her husband to start a family.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

Working primarily in acrylic on canvas, Cruz draws on watercolour techniques to create fluid, layered compositions rich in colour, form and texture. Her practice is rooted in intuitive painting, with each work created in conversation with the next. Built through washes, gestural marks and considered detail, her paintings carry a quiet symbolic language: the wash evokes emotional atmosphere, the gesture reflects wandering thought and lived experience, and the detail points to what we choose to hold onto and remember.

Drawing from landscape and memory, her work explores the tension between presence and reflection, where beauty and ache coexist. Titles play an essential role, bringing forward deeper meaning and guiding the viewer toward a more personal reading. Rooted in stillness, her process becomes a form of inward listening, allowing emotion to surface, shift and settle over time.