Unsettled Lands: Manette Rene Bradford

Exhibition on view: June 7- August 31, 2024

Reception: Thursday June 27,  5-7 pm (Coinciding with Artist Wilderness Connection 20th Anniversary opening).

Featuring work by Manette Rene Bradford, Unsettled Lands engages with traditional themes in visual culture of the mythic American West; of landscape as subject, and of landscape in relationship with legendary Western themes of masculinity, heroism, mastery, and stewardship over the land. Referencing a motif found in various creation mythologies of the immolation and dismemberment of a primordial figure to build a new cosmos, the work essentially reimagines a creation mythology for the American West.

Bradford is a multidisciplinary artist. She is originally from St. Paul, Minnesota, and earned her BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago. She constructs imagined allegorical narratives through painting, sculpture, and wall-sized mixed media works for specific geographic locations, historical moments, or ecological conditions. Manette combines historical, ecological, and folkloric research with her own direct experience of place to develop her work.

This exhibit is travelled & sponsored by MAGDA (Montana Art Gallery Director’s Association)