Tony Pharo grew up in upstate New York and now works out of Los Angeles, where his paintings orbit childhood references, sobriety, and whatever’s sitting at the front of his mind that day. His paintings come together through quick, instinctive marks and a stripped-down approach to materials, giving each piece a sense of immediacy without feeling forced. The characters that appear in his work act like placeholders for memory and emotion rather than nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. For Pharo, the studio is part expression and part self-management—a space where focus, repetition, and routine matter as much as the image itself.
What emotion or idea keeps sneaking into your work, even when you try to avoid it?
Self-love and judgement. In this day and age it sounds so cliché, but I have been working on these two areas vigorously for almost two years straight. We could say the last 10 years, but very intentionally the last two years. The idea is that if I can love myself more and judge myself less, it will open up the world to me as far as loving others and not judging others, creating space for new people and new experiences. Ultimately, it’s about opening the door back to my authentic self, and that’s something I hope translates well into my visual language on canvas.
What role does control play in your work and how often do you let go?
Control in my work is a very fluid topic. Sometimes I go into the studio with the intention of a specific idea, with specific application methods, colors, and composition in mind. Other times, I go into the studio and the intention is to create entirely from my subconscious, without reason, without control, without anything. The goal is to be entirely present and in the moment without room or pause for any thought or judgement—to just be.
What does your studio smell like on a good day?
I’ve been told it smells like a variety of good and bad scents. To me, it just smells like chemicals, and for some reason those scents are invigorating and give me a sense of ease and comfort.
Where does a piece usually begin—image, word, impulse, or accident?
What a loaded question. A piece can begin with an emotion, an image, a word, a conversation with someone, a conversation with myself, an impulse, an accident—anything really. Most of the time, my practice is to take some good or bad emotion I am coping with or cultivating from a life experience with a person, place, or thing and carry that into the work. I find that approach to be more organic and intuitive. I have really found a deep appreciation for that.
What’s the most beautiful mistake you’ve ever kept?
I once smashed a piece of an antique TV I keep in my studio—it had broken off and had four years of medias on it—onto a canvas because I got something on the TV I really did not want on it. I kicked the piece of the TV off out of frustration, picked it up, and smashed it onto the canvas. It ended up leaving a very organic, relatable marking on it. I really vibe with that process and the end result.