Toni Wilkinson emigrated with her family from London to Perth in the early 1970s. She worked as a Senior Photographer at X-press Magazine in Perth for six years in the late 1990s before returning to photographic study in 2000. In 2003 she completed a Bachelor of Arts at Murdoch University. Wilkinson's first solo exhibition Tough Pleasures was shown at Fremantle Arts Centre in 2003 and at Access Gallery, John Curtin Gallery and Linden St Kilda Centre for Contemporary Art in 2004. Her subsequent solo exhibition Prolepsis was held at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art in 2005. Wilkinson has been included in numerous group exhibitions including Ladies and Gentlemen, Queensland Centre of Photography and Changeling, Australian Centre of Photography in 2004 and Awkward Silences, Plimsoll Gallery, University of Tasmania in 2005.
