Tai Taeoalii

My name is Tai and I am a self-taught artist from Salt Lake City/Hannibal, MO with Samoan and Dutch heritage. Fueled with the inspiration of music and the nostalgic memories of my turbulent teenage years, I’ve tried to utilize my self-taught techniques, cultivated from urban doctrines, in an effort to create art that evokes an honest & hopefully profound emotional experience.

Perplexed with a cultural identity at an early age, I developed citizenship with the arts. Through my artistic explorations I discovered my auto-didactic ability, which lead to experimentation with nearly every type of art-form, but none have captured and retained my affections as strongly as drawing with a ballpoint pen, so that has been my focus for the past 8 years.

My recent artworks are surreal creations of ballpoint pen drawings on Mylar film including further highlights, details and background colors created with the use of pencils, charcoals and a drizzle of watercolors.  I mount the Mylar on recycled cardboard, then float-mount the piece in framed shadow boxes, which I also build.

While my art is seemingly filled with symbolic imagery, bearing social or political commentary, I never consciously approach a drawing with the intent of asserting my beliefs or opinions on viewers.  My creative process spawns from an organic and authentic subconscious journey and my creations manifest more by virtue of my own self-evaluation and less of propagating my ideology.