Broken Glass and Ice Cream

Trees of deepest emerald will soon begin their annual transformation, and Tony may very well transform with them: “My two favourite things to do when my creativity stumbles are leaving the country into something unknown or finding a new studio and putting a little too much effort into renovating these mostly unloved and dusty places. I’m currently working in my eighth studio over the last nine years. Does that perhaps speak for itself?” While an undeniable restlessness helps to inform Tony’s work, the artist intentionally seeks out slower moments to create.

A dark coffee close at hand, he sketches under the striped awning of Le Progrès. Framing the photograph to include the café’s name, Carla Gnendiger allows us to consider the artist’s own progress. “Implementing my artistic process into daily life as much as possible has probably been the most helpful way for me to stay focused and continuously work on my form of expression,” Tony reflects. “I try not to keep work and thoughts in the studio, but to carry them with me and use them wherever I go.” By expanding his practice beyond the studio, Tony expands his artistic vision and tries “to execute everyday tasks the same way [he] executes [his] tasks on a canvas.”

Creating isn’t all flâneur-ing and golden hour. While art making is essential and exhilarating for Tony, there is an agony to the process: “The feeling of painting is as joyful as it is complicated. It’s like eating ice cream while walking on broken glass. On a sunny day.” One might wonder if art is worth the pain, but for some of us, there isn’t another option. At risk of “confirming every cliché,” Tony admits, “My motivation is internal and totally irrational. The only thing I’ve learned is that holding back an idea does me no good. So there is not really a choice but to continue putting up with this chaos.”

Clad in black Levi’s and handmade jewellery or a classic trench over an eye-catching red sweater and white slacks, Paloma Trejo styles Tony to suggest his affinity for juxtaposition. Like many artists, he’s interested in contrast, both subtle and bold. When Tony pastes his hand-lettered posters to the side of a stone building, he sets new against old, the expected colliding with a surprise. While art-making is his career, he encourages “leaving yourself plenty of opportunities to give the middle finger.” Art holds every opportunity: to be uniting or transgressive, to enchant or repulse. Tony doesn’t put himself in a box for either theme or medium, but trying to hone his focus sometimes makes him wish he could “turn [his] head into a monk’s cell.” In endeavouring to leave distractions behind, don’t take it personally if Tony doesn’t get back to your message. “But isn’t that sort of the status quo in 2026?” he laughs.

Speckled paint decorates the thighs of Tony’s old coveralls as he sinks into a painting session inspired not necessarily by the city outside, but by the people: “Contrary to my initial, naïve expectations, life in my neighbourhood, Montmartre—once one of the most important artists’ quarters in Paris—certainly had no influence on my work nor my creative process. Yet the ever-present subtlety and sensitivity of Parisians to beauty, often unintentional, around the city has inspired me a lot.”