About
Born on a ranch in Wyoming, Tawni Shuler was enticed to paint and draw early on by the art of western painters Frederick Remington and Charlie Russell. She attended the University of Montana, Missoula to complete her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and Arizona State University to complete Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing. She has since served as the Programming Director for the Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana, an Assistant Professor in Watermedia at Utah Valley University, an Instructor of Art at Sheridan College, Media Specialist for the Arizona Natural History Association. Currently, Shuler lives, teaches and creates in Taos, NM.
After a recent move from the mountains of Wyoming to the arid climate of Arizona, then to the high New Mexico desert, images of western desert animals, flora and fauna have flooded her work. She works with a variety of mixed media to create layered pieces telling stories about these animals as they move through imagined landscapes filled with spiny sharp succulents, lush pink flowers, golden buzzing bees, towering cliffs and embellished clouds. The spaces they inhabit are those found in the transition from reality to the imagined, a dream from the space between sleep and awake. Her work encourages viewers to acknowledge and appreciate how external surroundings and events shape our inner landscapes and the stories we tell.
