Tao Urban
San Pablo (waterbar 2) was originally created from Tao Urban's Source, Resource installation at Acuna-Hansen Gallery in 2003. It is a wooden hand-built wall mounted refrigeration unit, and for Delta Waters contains water gathered from the headwaters of the San Joaquin River. The shape of “San Pablo" is based on the shape of the San Pablo Bay and the coloration is based on diagrams of how water temperature is distributed within that body of water. The San Pablo Bay can be considered the terminus of the San Joaquin River. Urban's travels gathering waters from the delta headwaters by boat, canoe and foot early 2012 will be presented as journal entries in a similar style to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their expedition through the Northwest passage. They can also been seen on his blog HERE.
Tao Urban received his B.F.A. in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1993 and his M.F.A. from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2000. He has had solo exhibitions at the Swarm Gallery in Oakland, CA, the Big Biscuit Gallery in Detroit, MI and the Acuna-Hansen Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. Urban’s work has been included in group shows across the United States, including; Midway Contemporary – Minneapolis MN, Austin Design Center - Austin TX, New Langton Arts - San Francisco CA, High Desert Test Sites 2 - Joshua Tree CA and the Torrance Museum of Art – Torrance CA. He has lectured and been a visiting artist at a number of institutions including Carnegie Mellon University, Southern California Institute of Architecture and the Cranbrook Academy of Art and currently teaches in the Integrated Learning department at the Otis College of Art and Design. Urban lives and works in Los Angeles.
