celebrating community through creativity The Art of Tao LaBossiere
H
ow far would you go for your art? Or perhaps the question is really ’how high?’ In that case, the answer for Tao LaBossiere is 60 feet. Maybe even higher. But for now, LaBossiere is focused on the 60-foot mural he intends to paint this coming spring on the outer wall of a building in downtown Hartford. An award-winning muralist, sculptor, and illustrator, Tao is a Hartford-based artist and founder of Art of Tao LaBossiere LLC. Artistically speaking, he does it all — transforming architecture through large-scale murals, creating,and restoring sculptures, designing custom illustrations, and hand-crafting mixed media artwork. His 25 years as a professional artist leave in its wake a host of satisfied clients, including cities and towns, public libraries, schools, restaurants, and private art patrons throughout the tri-state area. “Basically, we provide commercial businesses, like restaurants and organizations, with a fine art expression of their brand,” says Tao’s wife Amy, a multi-disciplinary artist in her own right, who boasts more than two decades of experience in marketing public relations and creative communication. She also serves as business manager of the couple’s company. “The art that we're creating is branding art for a new business or organization.,” explains Tao. “They each have their own vision of what their institution is — what their mission statement is — and it's our job to interpret that visually, so that it aligns with the brand.”
GIANT SHEPHERD, AT INTERIOR DOG PARK MURAL, WAGGING TAILS, WEST HARTFORD
MORE THAN A PICTURE ON A WALL But back to murals. “I have the most creative freedom painting murals, even if they are designed by committee or directed by an organization,” says Tao. “The BBQ Bears Smokehouse mural, for example, was one of the first large murals that arose in Hartford in 2015. It's beautiful. It’s the entrance to the city. It's iconic, and we had a fantastic client to work with.” In that case, Tao took what the client wished for the building — which was to incorporate the smokers into the design — and used the creative flexibility to architecturally transform the building’s facade. Huh? “What that means is I architecturally transformed the
ONE OF TWO PLASMA-CUT AND HAND-PAINTED STEEL AND RECLAIMED WOOD LOGOS FOR HARTFORD FIRE DEPARTMENT
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Vol. 11, No. 4, 2021 west hartford magazine 13
