TODJI IS SEEKING QUALIFIED ARTISTIC REPRESENTATION. REFERRALS ARE APPRECIATED.
BIOGRAPHY
Who am I? I am here to find out.
My artistic creations are what my journey looks like.
I walked the red carpet in a tux at the Cannes Film Festival with movie stars flanked by paparazzi and my photo was opposite Michael Jackson in a French film magazine when I was 26. I built monumental bronze sculptures in Asia at age 37, I lived in Brazil for two years, Peru for one year, married a Brazilian woman for ten years. I’ve had sculpture studios in New York City, Brooklyn, San Francisco, Portland Oregon, and Rio de Janeiro. I survived six years of illness with near death encounters while the economy crashed in 2008 followed by bankruptcy as a self employed artist. I’ve earned a little wisdom.
My Afro-Brazilian Capoeira nickname is “Malandragem da Bahia” Which translates roughly to: “Street smarts from where street smarts are from”. I’ve been neighbors to the ultra wealthy and I’ve been neighbors to the ultra poor; I am a hard working artist in the middle with a unique perspective. I believe that with privilege comes responsibility to uplift others, and the worst poverty is poverty of spirit. I strive to speak the truth with my first words every time.
I began sculpting as a child and I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in studio art from the University of California Santa Barbara. I later did post graduate studies in traditional figurative sculpture at the New York Academy of Art and taught at the Art Institute of Portland.
I was born in 1970, the son of an Architect and Interior Designer, which formed the foundation of my value to make the world a more beautiful place for everyone. There are many talented professional artists in my immediate and extended family: Photographers, painters, musicians, dancers, entrepreneurs and teachers and I feel blessed to have such an upstanding creative family.
I was poisoned at an Indigenous festival of 13 Brazilian tribes in the deep Amazon in 2011. It was terrifying, I survived, and I am still recovering. Since then, I have donated and helped raise thousands of dollars to help the same indigenous people who tried to kill me because they need help. The chief of the tribe stayed at my house for an entire week in 2024 and we had a very cathartic visit.
My sculpture career took backseat to my self-healing work for 14 years as I moved to Brazil and Peru and learned to speak both Portuguese and Spanish so I could study Amazonian plants to try to find the antidote to the poison. Not a day passes when I don’t remember the trauma and cost to my health. I have powerful emotions to master within myself every day as a spiritual practice. It is my wish to transform that experience into inspirational works of art that inspire others to cultivate their own creative gifts to make the world a more beautiful place for all beings. I learned a lot about the universal spirituality of nature from spending years with the indigenous people of South America and a few close indigenous friends of North America, and I integrate that consciousness with the higher principles of my own Jewish heritage with reciprocity at heart.
My sculptures are known across North America, South America and Asia for their sublime expression, archetypal form, and signature style with exaggerated proportions in my entirely original “Figurative Forced Perspective”. Museums have yet to express interest in my work, but the public and other artists have been extremely supportive. I wish to exhibit my sculptures in Museums one day and I am seeking guidance, assistance and professional representation to help develop my career in that direction.
I’ve practiced the Afro-Brazilian martial art and dance of Capoeira and Brazilian music for 30 years and I’ve played drums in my Brazilian teacher’s bands in the streets of Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval for tens of thousands of people. I’ve played guitar, bass and percussion in many bands over the years, with a highlight opening for Angelique Kidjo.
Creative storytelling is one of my artistic facets. My collaborative short animated films were the official selections at seventeen of the world’s top film festivals including the Smithsonian Institution, Cannes, Sundance and Annecy, with television broadcast across Europe, Africa, Japan and HBO. At age 24 I received an internship on the stop-motion animated film “James and the Giant Peach”, which began my decade long career as a stop-motion animator, sculptor and puppet fabricator, working with talents such as Tim Burton, Eddie Murphy, and Dan Castalaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson.
My best times as an artist were exhibiting my sculpture at Burning Man for nine consecutive years from 2001-2009, creating art for fabulous community art events in Portland Oregon, exhibiting sculpture at Art Basel Miami, the New Orleans Jazz Festival, many art galleries, music festivals, and charity events. My sculptures can currently be seen in sculpture parks, public spaces, corporate and private collections on at least 4 continents. “Thank You Water” is my masterpiece to date, and I wish to do more sculpture commissions of this scope.
Thank you for your interest in my work. It is patronage that keeps me working as an artist, and for this I am deeply grateful!
