Taryn Boals was born in the small town of Orangeville, Illinois surrounded by farmland, horses, and open skies. Boals earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Montana State University in 2008 followed by an MFA in Painting from Northern Illinois University in 2012. She currently draws inspiration from the sweeping vistas surrounding her home near Jackson Hole, Wyoming where she lives.
She is represented by Foxtrot Fine Art in Idaho and Visions West Contemporary in Montana and Colorado.
Statement
Taryn Boals is forever enamored with the American West. The West’s narrative has never been a tale of perfection but one of resilience, a defining characteristic also found in Boals’ work, something she calls a “Live Edge.” Her work is inspired by the raw emotions and movement found in the western landscape and in animals–but also in the wild personalities of turn-of-the-century Rocky Mountain pioneers.
Boals’ markmaking is filled with futurist energy, carving out her images with expressionist angles. There is a raw honesty in her work, revealed by numerous corrections and revisions left evident in the final product. “My work isn’t about perfection, inadvertently this show tells a lot about who I am as a person. My marks tell stories of anxiety, struggle, and awkwardness. But they are
counterbalanced with moments of refinement.”
Boals’ work, though sophisticated in composition, at its core centers on the very primitive and biological essence of Western life. “I’ve been looking at a lot of cave paintings lately, Lascaux, Altamira, and Chauvet–I feel a kinship with the artists that created them over 40,000 years ago,” says the artist.
The vast majority of her materials are even the same as these prehistoric ancestors, charcoal. The immediacy and rawness transcend the medium, breathing oxygen into each work. “It’s honest, messy, and carries a weight when I need it to,” says Boals.
A product of our uncontrollable flow of life, Taryn Boals’ work reads both as a snapshot along the way and as a reflection of our ancestors, our history, and the repetition of day to day life.