Artist Statement from Tao:
I’ve always been an artist. At the age of five I remember finger painting and receiving praise from my mother. My art making often helped me transcend the racism I experienced as a half Chinese boy in a white community as a young man. It became a way to circumvent how I was different from my peers and connect with the commonality inherent in engaging creativity. My artwork validated my humanity and personhood and gave me an identity. This led to the self-belief that art was how I would someday earn my place and purpose in the world as an adult.
For more than 25 years, I’ve been self-employed as a professional artist and a developing artist my entire life. Because I made a living through my artwork, I mainly created commercially focused art. Art of Tao LaBossiere LLC creates large-scale public art murals and commissions in various mediums, including sculpture, paintings, and illustration. My sculpture experience is mostly with fiberglass, and I also work in steel and mixed media applications. Early in my career and ongoingly, I sculpted more than forty custom cow parade cows and restored more than 400. I also collaborate with my wife Amy and our clients to ensure the product suits the location and the project objectives and budget.
Concurrently to the art business, I worked on a pastoral homestead for more than ten years to transform the environment into a holistic retreat center. I built stone walls, architectural elements on outbuildings, interior functional artwork, and created a sculpture walk in the woods with my own art and other artists’ work.
When I look at a location, I am excited by the creative challenge to visualize and design site-specific art. It would enhance the experience of the space itself, and how it may relate to the viewer—both as physical work and as a concept that may reflect an important social issue of our time. Ultimately I would like my work to have an impact that causes self-reflection and the possibility of inner evolution and spiritual connection to the world through creativity.
My current work in progress is an exciting mixed media mural for the Asylum Hill neighborhood in my home city of Hartford entitled Bee The Change. My sculpting abilities and seasoned painting skills converge to create a captivating large-scale public work of art. As I move forward in my art career, I listen deeply to my inner voice and artistic vision. While I’m not ready to completely let go of commercial work, the more I tune into my soul’s response to a site-specific creative inquiry, the more I will practice.
—Tao LaBossiere, Sept 28, 2021