Born in Manhattan, I grew up in my father's Greenwich Village art studio. I earned a B.F.A. in Painting from Syracuse University (1977), then travelled and studied in Florence and London. Moving to Charlotte, N.C. in 1980, I showed for 14 years with Center of the Earth Gallery in NODA, the premier gallery in Charlotte's original arts district.
Included in New American Painting Vol.22 in 1999, I was selected as a Resident Artist at the McColl Center for Visual Art in 2000. Named Best Artist in Charlotte Magazine the same year. In 2002 I showed 16 paintings in 'Invisible Cities' at Davidson College. My work was published in 'Great World Writers' (Marshall Cavendish, 2004). Included in the N.C. Artist's Exhibition (Raleigh, N.C.) in 2016, and selected for 3 'Truth to Power' Juried shows at Durham, N.C.'s Pleiades Gallery (2017, 2018, and 2019). In 2019 'Interrogation' was chosen for 'Open 30', an International Juried Exhibition at Laredo College in Laredo, Texas. In 2021 'Shipwrecks' was selected for 'Best of the East Coast' at 311 Gallery in Raleigh, N.C. In 2022, 2 paintings were selected for "Tell It Slant' a Nationally juried show of 'Political Art With Wit' at the Cade Gallery in Arnold, MD. ‘Port of New Orleans’ was included in the 2024 Degas House Museum Art Fest. ‘Looming Apocalypse’ was accepted into ‘War & Peace’, a 2024 International Group Exhibition, and the online art news site Hyperallergic included my studio in their ‘View From the Easel’feature.
I'm married to sculptor/painter Rebecca Jones. We have a daughter, Alexandria Tao, a fine jazz pianist, and are now living in New Orleans, La.