Toby Fifield is an artist based in San Francisco who creates engaging art that promotes social interaction. His artworks have been exhibited internationally, including in major art museums in Asia, international children's museums, galleries, and universities. He holds a BFA from California College of the Arts and an MA in Education from UC Santa Cruz. His work documents people through experiences traveling in Asia over 10 years and aims to portray interdependence between individuals and their environments through bodily interactions.

1. TOBY FIFIELD
Mobile: 415-517-1670
E-Mail: mail@tobiasfifield.com
ARTIST’S CURRICULUM VITAE
Lives and works in San Francisco, California
EDUCATION:
• 1990-1995 Bachelor of Fine Arts; Painting & Sculpture /Industrial Design, California College of the Arts
• 2004-2005 MA., Education, University of California Santa Cruz Ext.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
• 2012 Timepiece design for Z Laboratories Ltd, / Zerone Brand, Hong Kong, China
• 2011 Collage & Montage exhibit “Rubbish” Artist in Residence, Artmosophere, Bangaluru, India
• 2009 Reflections; “Departures”. silkscreen on paper & wood. Myongji University, Seoul, Korea
• 2006 Animal Silhouettes; Series. Ink on handmade paper. Traveling art exhibit. Children's Museum of Art, Japan
• 2005 'Food for Thought” Art Collage on wood. Group Show at the Chosun-ilbo Art Museum, Seoul, Korea
• 1994 “Absolute Dimension” Anaglyphic Painting: Acrylic on canvas Open Studios’ San Francisco, CA
• 1993 Anaglyphic Paintings: Acrylic on canvas Gallery; ‘Whatever’ Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA
• 1992 Anaglyphic Paintings: Acrylic on canvas ‘Open Studios’ San Francisco, CA
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
• 2008 Public Art Exhibit, human scale figures in papier mach'e. Seoul Metro Subway, Korea
• 2006 Artist exhibitor, Tokyo Big Site exhibition center, Tokyo, Japan exhibited sculptural paper lighting fixtures
• 1990 Anaglyphic Paintings: Acrylic on canvas CCAC, Oakland Campus, California
COLLECTIONS:
• 2006 Animal Silhouettes; Series. Ink on handmade paper. On permanent exhibition. Children's Museum of Art,
Japan
COMMISIONS:
• 2012 Timepiece design for Z Laboratories Ltd, / Zerone Brand, Hong Kong, China
• 2008 Reflections; “Departures”. silkscreen on paper. restaurant, Seoul, Korea
• 1998 “Digitoy” during ICONS of Meaning. (Museum Store) Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
COMPETITIONS:
• 2012 Timepiece design for Z Laboratories Ltd, / Zerone Brand, Hong Kong, China
• 2006 “Tobiko Lamp”; Bamboo and Washi Paper - MUJI, Tokyo, Japan
GRANTS AND AWARDS:
• Dean's Award for integrating the arts in teaching language. National University of Art education, Jinju, South
Korea 2005
• All College Honors Award for excellence. California College of Arts and Crafts (CCA). 1994
• Academic Scholarship. California College of the Arts (CCA), 1990-1994

2. TOBY FIFIELD
June, 2012
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY:
Toby creates engaging art that evokes both the emotional and social from viewers. His new work cultivates a sense of
interdependence, promoting social interaction among strangers, and increasing viewers’ curiosity in innovative sculptural
forms. His artworks have been on public view in Major Art Museums in Asia, International Children’s Museums, Art
Galleries, Art Universities and Exposition Centers including the Children's Museum of Art (Japan), the Chosun-ilbo Art
Museum (Korea), The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and most recently in Hong Kong/China, Thailand and India.
Toby's professional work experience as a designer in industrial design influenced his skills in his art and his teaching. He
has taken teaching residencies and artist-in-residencies in Korea, India, Japan, and Thailand. He completed a teaching
practicum integrating the arts and language where he taught perceptual drawing, painting and sculpture and most recently
has taught curriculums in product design in India. He has held international art workshops in art/design institutes,
universities, museums, and exposition centers in both Korea, Japan, Thailand and India. He has been awarded academic
scholarships, grants and received a Federal Pell grant during his education while completing a Bachelors of Arts at the
California College of the Arts where he studied the visual arts, studying core foundations in Drawing, Painting, Sculpture;
Wood-Making, Furniture Design, Metal Forming, Casting, Glass Blowing and Theater Design, integrating fine art
mediums majoring in industrial design. Toby was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and gained his inspiration from his
grandfather who once worked with Mr Walt Disney and became a Commercial Artist. He holds a Bachelor's of Fine Art
from the California College of the Arts and a Masters in Education from the University of California Santa Cruz, obtained
in South Korea during his teaching residency at the National University of Art Education, where he taught twenty different
Art Workshops in Media Art; Perceptual Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, and also other Workshops at various Art
galleries in Seoul, South Korea, And a print-making workshops at the Tokyo Exposition Center "Big Site", Tokyo, Japan,
the Children's Museum of Art, Hamada, Japan, and a group shows at Myongji University, Seoul Korea.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
I have been working abroad throughout Asia creating conceptual designs and visual art from materials ubiquitous in daily
life in the East and globally. Stemming from my experiences working in the field of industrial design, I have solidified and
expanded my love of sketching and painting new idea's then creating and arranging them – bringing them to life During
my practice as a designer I also experiment with the idea of taking a ready-made objects or material and transforming, it
to incorporate it and redefine its meaning in my work. My present body of works are composed of a series of collected
drawings, paintings, sculpture and works in print making; silk-screens onto handmade paper originated from Korea,
Japan, Indonesia, and China. My work; is a personal documentation; a reflection of people that I have documented and
captured through experiences and occurrences throughout ten years of travel in Asia. I paint silhouettes as embodied
individuals which act separately from their surroundings and other people outlined in line drawing leaving the notion of
one’s disconnection to their environment and one’s connection to technology. My form minimalism represents a monolithic
sense with a composition that focuses on the relationship of the individual disconnection – contrasted against bold colors
of vermilion deep red and other bold colors. These elements are in continual exchange with the environment and with
others through a transformation of daily gesture activities and human factors. The art captures daily routines, and
interactions of individuals in society. Even when alone, the imprints of these interactions drive our thoughts and memories.
This opens up a window of criticism and thought provoking questions to the viewer leaving questions to be unanswered
and opens up a dialogue of a past memory of oneself or someone they know who had the same experiences. These
experiences play a role in every ones past and future. Building stories of relative events in time. In my new artwork, I
portray this interdependence of individuals with their environments and with each other through bodily interactions. Many
of my works do not function unless viewers actively engage with them; seeing themselves in a common gesture, leaving a
viewer to wonder about human-to-human social interactions. The pieces engage communication among the viewers
where more than a mere reaction to the work, becomes the very essence of it. My artistic process is rooted in my training
as an industrial designer and educator. The storyboard concept is based on an understanding of the perceptual and
emotional impact of an existing moment. This methodology in creating paintings and sculpture of time-based interactions
of human silhouettes represent time as a temporary documentation of a person’s existence in a ever growing society that
is waiting for change but is documenting the present. Although, I have adopted a minimalist artistic practice in my work,
my working process is subtractive, removing elements until only those necessary for conveying a work's meaning remain.
I combine this approach with the principles of phenomenology – the philosophy of how the body "thinks" through mediated
perception, rather than through reason and language. Participants construct the meaning of my works through a process
of physical awareness and implicit a notion of the relation between our body and things, and ones environment that often
changes in time. My approach rewards viewers with an immediate, intimate sense of presence, while simultaneously
inducing them to understand the conceptual motivation and deeper meaning of minimalism. My interests in
phenomenology and minimalism reflect several of my artistic influences. First is the experimentation of designed by
accident, when I work, I play and continue to learn more about color, light, sensitivity, forms and playfulness of simple
forms of geometry, playing with transparency, overlaying human forms and objects in both painting and sculpture. My

3. work continues to explore new mediums used in print making and sculpture documenting people today in different
environments throughout.