Tauna Cole Dorn

ARTIST BIO

Tauna has lived in Las Cruces since arriving for graduate school in the summer of 1996 to pursue her MFA in Painting. Over the years, she built a life rooted in the community—finding her lifelong partner, Raul Dorn, raising a family, and serving as an instructor in the New Mexico State University Department of Art for 23 years before retiring.

Tauna saw teaching as a vocation to keep her connected to art and making art. Deeply engaged in the regional arts scene, she offered camps and classes primarily for kids and sometimes for adults. She has been a member of Border Artists for over a dozen years, exhibiting regularly in their local shows and at RioBravoFineArt Gallery. Her work was also featured consistently at La Mecha Contemporary in El Paso during its final two years, before it closed in 2024. Recently Tauna has shown her work in Colorado and online in California. Her work is in several collections in Idaho, New Mexico, and Texas.

Since retiring, Tauna has devoted more time to her studio practice, focusing on creating new work and sharing it with broader audiences. Her appreciation and practice of yoga have inspired new approaches to making art over the last ten years. She is excited to continue this chapter of her artistic journey and looks forward to being part of the Agave Art Gallery.

 ARTIST STATEMENT

Artist Statement

My work is inspired by a desire to bring meditation, breathing, and mindfulness into the studio. These interoceptive qualities—awareness of internal physical and emotional states—have become integral to my process and are largely influenced by my yoga practice and later, meditation practice. I have developed a heightened physical awareness of body and mind that is subconsciously revealed through abstract compositions.

I enjoy transitioning from working in oils and water-based media to dry media, particularly color pencils, pastels, and charcoal. I am currently working on two bodies of work. The first is more overtly meditative, working with the interaction of the shapes through line and shapes, layering with color and media. I allow the final composition to reveal itself through a slow, intuitive process guided by repetition, balance, and attentiveness.

The second body of work is more physical and comes from the breath. Each set of lines represents a breath. The overall composition is repetitious, the lines imperfect, as well as the spacing. Together, these works explore the relationship between breath, awareness, and abstraction, inviting viewers to pause, breathe, and experience a moment of quiet presence.