Biography

TONA is the pseudonym of an anonymous street artist from Hamburg. He started to paint graffiti in 1999 and then started cutting stencils in 2002. Addicted to traveling, the artist traveled several times to Asia where he has left his mark across the countries with his unique street art. Whether you are in India, Nepal, Thailand, Laos, Japan or Indonesia, you will have a good chance to spot stencils of happy children peeking out from street corners, looking at you from walls, electric boxes or doors and generally being playful.

In a world that often seems to be unfair, mean and brutal and where people are blinkered, the motivation of Tona is to confront this distorted perception with a dreamy, sensual and emotional perspective. Unlike other street artists, who are mostly expressing themselves through criticism and irony, the work of Tona aims to deconstruct the viewers’ «ordinary perceptions» to start an emotional conversation with the viewer. His temporary art in the street enables us to feel the transformation of the world around us and as a result, our own consciousness.

The artist is used to take photos of people on the streets and transform these images into stencils that he paints back in the streets. His dogma being: from the streets for the streets. He loves cracked surfaces and walls that can tell a story and always cares to reflect the context of urbanism in his studio work by using rough materials taken from the street. Tona is an authentic street artist who took part in street art festivals, and whose street art can also be found in many cities in the world such as Hamburg, Berlin, Lisbon, Paris, Valencia, Athens, Lagos, Amsterdam, Tokio, Osaka, Bangkok, Kathmandu, Mumbai, New Delhi and many more.