Tony Paraná’s first contact with art was in his early teenage years, drawing with his mother on the kitchen table in Bahia, Brazil.  Years later, Tony Paraná moved to São Paulo, Brazil, and met an established artist, Rodolfo Rondon, who mentored him in the beginning of his artistic career.

In 2003 Paraná moved to New Mexico where he took the opportunity to start painting on a regular basis as he continued to learn and work on his technique. A few years later, in 2006, he started a local art meeting in Bernalillo, NM, to bring exhibitions and art classes to the community.

In 2007 Paraná moved to Houston and started connecting with the art community. From 2009 to 2018, he taught weekly art classes to seniors at the Wesley Community Center in the Historic Near Northside through his work at the Brazilian Arts Foundation. In 2010  he created a local art movement called the Montrose Art Society, which later became Forum 6 Gallery in 2018 and curated a diverse body of work and art-based events from local community artists of various cultural backgrounds.

In 2018 Paraná created the Mobile Art Space for the Artists (MASA) from a repurposed 40’ shipping container with the intent of traveling the city and offering free art, music, poetry and different cultural arts classes to low income communities where he continues to work collaboratively with local organizations. Currently the MASA is stationed in the heart of Fifth Ward on Lyons Ave, working closely with community-based artists, and the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation.