About Toller

“I am unique because I became world class in two things.”

“Da Vinci was never the figure skating champion of Italy.”

“The most important thing that people can say about me as a painter is to refer to me as a painter. The most infuriating thing is to be referred to as a skater who paints.”

“I always feel that for anybody who is not familiar with my work that if I could just show you more, if I could just show you one more painting, you could understand me more and then you would be able to relate more to the work.”

“As an artist, I don’t question images or themes. I never question my hand. I never doubt it. It starts and that’s what comes out.”

“The artist cannot have a family, or any kind of relationship. You are married to your work. That is your wife and husband. By doing what you want to do, and being very creative, you must also know that your life and your life journey will always be spent alone because the complete and total dedication and all emotions go into the work.”

“Work is actually all I know. This is really quite pathetic. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to have fun. I wouldn’t know what that meant. But, that said, I’m doing what I want.”

“We’re all born with an inclination in the genes about who we are and what we’re supposed to do. It’s in the DNA. I had full knowledge as to what my destiny was from a very early age. I was a painter.”

“Every face that I have ever painted in my life has been a self-portrait.”

“The thrill of being a skater is practicing. It is going out and doing it and losing yourself to the music. It is not the applause.”

“I have a very specific style. Many artists have no style at all—that is, they don’t know what vocabulary is best to identify them. That is never my problem. My work has been the same since I was six years old which is odd because in many ways it is evocative almost of a Mongolian or a Russian style.”

“I used to think I was unlucky and tortured. But I have been lucky. I have had a life passionate in the extreme and in two different artistic fields. I had a body that played to the hand of being an athlete which probably Leonardo da Vinci didn’t. I mean he didn’t do the Russian splits.”

“The thing that I thrill to is how the masters marry themselves body and soul to their work. It was going after the secret key to the secret door of the 4th dimension. Sometimes when you perform at the highest level, you get somewhere no one can ever reach. It is kind of a communion with the sublime.”

“One of the great and most fantastic things about producing works of art is that you never know, when you are going to see them. And sometimes, artists like me, would have a surprise and you could be in France, you could be in Australia, you could be in Las Vegas, and once in a blue moon, you walk into a room and “Wow”, there you see one of your paintings and it’s actually like contacting some forgotten child that is very much in your past.”

“Creativity on a high level has to be done in a solitary way. I have learned as an artist that I cannot have any music playing if I am genuinely conceptualizing. Everything becomes a distraction. A stranger could be down on the garden path and my hair would stand on end and I would become hysterical and want to murder them. Being alone with your thoughts, being alone so that the channel is clear, so that there can be no interruption or interference is the only way that you can create.”

“I am often unable to tear myself away from the studio. The paintings are demanding. They are like petulant children that need to be baby sat. It is impossible to walk away. As I go out the door, the paintings are telling me, “Come and fix me. Come and work with me.” So, I leave every day never satisfied, tormented that I haven’t done enough.”

“The artist suffers more because they feel more. Insult or rejection or disappointment becomes monumental and you live with that every day of your life.”

“If it fits through the door, it goes on the wall.”

“People that come in the door never buy. It is the people who are invited to come in who do. Art really depends on where it is shown. If something is in the Louvre, all of us, even me, would probably think it is pretty good. If it is in some dive diner somewhere, it doesn’t have the same allure. If one were to drag a Leonard da Vinci out on the pavement on Queen St. East, you’d think it was a piece of shit.”

“A large painting is particularly interesting for me because I never run out of room. The smaller paintings are more labour intensive because there is more detail. The act of painting is like having your favourite dessert. Just delicious.”

“I live in an environment which for many would be obsessive-compulsive but for me, the house, the gardens, the collections, all the things that are created here, I look at as a creative work in progress.”

” ‘Passion’ comes from the reservoir of the soul and is revealed in body language, whatever that vocabulary may be, indigenous to the specific individual. Passion conquers all in the final analysis.”

“A very important thing learned in painting and in skating was how not to be afraid, and how to live one’s life without inhibition. You have to say what you want to say, stand up for what you believe in, go after things, and never be afraid.”

“The card for the perfect romantic life was not in my hand. Now I think, OMG I really did get quite a few cards that many others could never have. The cards that I was dealt, if we can be specific, a brain, a body that was talented, a huge creative reservoir from which to do many things, health, and opportunity. Those are huge cards to be given. Quite simply, I have spent my life being creative.”

“I do want to be taken seriously as an artist, but yet, I really don’t have to have somebody put the seal of approval on me because my life is the real deal. I am an artist. I know that. And if nobody else knows it, I know it.”