T. L. Solien

When T. L. Solien embarks on a journey, he travels through epic topics of American literature, history, and culture. This nationally recognized artist, based in northern Minnesota and Madison, Wisconsin, has recently addressed Melvilles classic novel Moby-Dick and the Oregon Trail in his painting series and mixed media art. Whether imagining the nomadic life of Ahabs widow or contemplating the restlessness that settled the American West, Solien employs inventive combinations of collage, paint, paper, and canvas to explore American myths. Soliens artistic sources range from Matisses cutouts to childrens coloring books to Winslow Homer and Picasso. His vivid imagery offers a surreal mix of characters, scale, and media and engages historic events and themes with an innovative aesthetic. The artist has exhibited at the Whitney Biennial, the Walker Art Center, and the American Center in Paris and has received awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bush Foundation, and the McKnight Foundation. T. L. Solien: Toward the Setting Sun features sixty color images of Soliens artworks, as well as essays by Elizabeth A. Schultz, Michael Duncan, and Colleen J. Sheehy and an interview by Erika Doss that place him in the context of American modernism, Melville studies, nineteenth-century landscape painting, and film. Moving from whaling adventures in New England to vast territories of land and opportunity in the West, Solien continues the eternal American search for self-fulfillment and rebirth in his art.