About

    Mike Tabor is one of the most respected American western expressionist artists. Tabor began his formal art training at Tarleton State University. Upon graduating Tabor began a successful teaching career at Granbury High School lasting some 30 years. He went on to become the Fine Arts Department chair at Granbury ISD.  After years of juggling teaching and an art career he was now able to pursue his passion pursuing art as a full-time endeavor. Tabor’s works include paintings, assemblages and sculptures. He has worked in public spaces creating murals as well as life-size sculptures. 

   He describes his paintings as American expressionism while his subject matter is commissioned driven. Tabor’s concern for layers of textural depth, his use of light and color become intense emotional interpretations. Sculpting has allowed him a 3-dimensional approach to communicating a feeling or idea. Working with a 360-degree view presents a concept that intrigues the development of not only the physical but the cerebral process. Tabor’s life-size bronzes have ushered him into public art. “Public art is a great way to merge the feeling of space to an artistic representation.” The challenge becomes not only the art but the way it occupies its surroundings and the visceral feeling it brings to the viewer.

      Tabor comes from a working family. Whether ranching, construction or creating art, he finds satisfaction in the process and has no plans to stop.

My primary concern is to continue the expansion of my interpretations while using fewer literal representations through materials, techniques and creative experimentation. I want to keep producing visual statements using a variety of elements. Regardless of subject matter, I believe the Expressionistic exploration will eventually lead to a complete conclusion. I feel a never-ending desire to push these personal boundaries in a new direction.

The conclusion that I make is that artists should seek their own reward in the process of their work and the release from his/her burden of thought while making interesting art and being indifferent to praise or ridicule, failure or success.