Toni Rea is an Australian artist working from her studio in the hinterland woodlands of the Sunshine Coast, since 2013 to the present. Previously from 1976 to 2012 she taught Visual Arts in state high schools, with the last 25 years as Head of Department – The Arts. She graduated with a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, QLD. She completed a Master of Philosophy through Creative Practice in 2017, at QUT. For that research work, she was short listed for the QUT Dorothy Birt Prize.
Rea studied life drawing under Yvonne Audette at the Hawthorne Arts Centre in Melbourne. She then moved to the USA in 2018 to study at the Art Students League of New York, NY. While there she worked as studio assistant to fine art painter Frank O’Cain. She also studied under the fine art painter, Jill Nathanson. In her upper East side Manhattan studio Rea began to develop the direction for her practice. She returned to Australia at the end of April 2020 as the pandemic stopped the atelier program and borders began to close, and she continues to develop her painting practice today.