Tara Rose Toner is a California artist whose multidisciplinary practice is shaped by a lifelong relationship with art, design, and the natural world. Raised in Montecito along California’s Central Coast, she developed an artistic sensibility from an early age, later earning acceptance to the Visual Art and Design Academy at Santa Barbara High School.

 

Her artistic education extended beyond the classroom through studies with professional artists including Odin K. Smith of Cape Cod, Jordan Pope of Montecito, and Duane Unkefer of Santa Barbara. Toner went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art and Design from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, establishing a foundation in fine art and design that continues to inform the breadth of her practice.

 

While completing her BFA, Toner entered the world of couture fashion, working in the Los Angeles studio of Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte and joining the fashion house in New York during Fashion Week. Her immersion in fashion deepened an appreciation for materiality, form, composition, and the dialogue between art and design, an intersection that remains integral to her work.

 

Toner’s work has been exhibited throughout California, including at Cal Poly’s University Art Gallery, solo exhibitions along the central coast, and the SLOPOKE Western Art Show. Her practice extends beyond the traditional canvas through select collaborations spanning fashion, hospitality, and design. These include original artwork created for Alisal Ranch’s apparel collection, custom candle collections, artist-led creative workshops, and an ongoing collaboration with couture fashion house Armature. 

 

Working across a range of mediums, Toner moves fluidly between painting, plein air landscape work, charcoal life drawing, fashion, botanical fragrance, objects for the home, publishing, and immersive creative experiences. She designs and handcrafts botanical home goods and candle collections inspired by nature, while her original artwork has found expression through fashion and design collaborations. Her practice also extends to storytelling as the author and illustrator of a published children’s book, as well as painting and candle-making workshops that invite others to experience the creative process firsthand.

 

Nature is the enduring thread through Toner’s work. She is drawn to its fleeting poetry, the passage of light across a hillside, sun sparkling on the ocean, a wildflower in bloom, or the quiet humility of watching the sun set from horseback and remembering our small place within something infinitely greater. In a natural world that never repeats itself, there is endless beauty to discover and a connection we all share. Toner’s work, in all its forms, is her love song to nature.

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