Biography
Oil painter Bonnie Conrad portrays images of America’s western and rural heritage. Subjects range from Native American to cowboy or women, children and animals in a rural setting. Having lived on several ranches, including Wyoming, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Oregon and Texas with her ranch manager husband Roger, Conrad has been exposed to the West up close and personal. It drew her in and she paints it with exuberance. She has dressed her five daughters in pantaloons and long dresses and posed them in the icy Shoshone River ‘washing clothes’ and rounded up her husband’s ‘hands’ in a rare spare moment and bid them to run their horses thru the river ‘one more time’ and joined in the bloody ‘fun’ at branding time. She has reveled in the palpable excitement of the cowboys behind the chutes at rodeo as they ready to try their skills at a testy bronc and fallen over wagon tongues because she was so interested in seeing what was going on ‘out there’ that she wasn’t watching ‘right here’. We had 4-H’d and joined pow-wows and danced at Crow Fair. We have driven in a rickety bus down through seven vegetative zones of the Copper Canyon to visit the Tarahumara Indians to visit the purported least ‘civilized’ tribe on the North American continent. We have hiked down to the White House ruins with a 50 lb. pack of ‘artists paraphernalia’ to paint the Navajo Bead workers and the colorfully chiseled walls of Canyon d’Chelly and felt the Spirit of the Anasazi ruins of Mesa Verde and puzzled over petroglyphs of southern Utah.
Education underpinning Bonnie’s production include a B.A. in arts, a year studying under master draftsman Kent Goodliffe and workshops with some of her favorites including Dan Mieduch, Jim Wilcox, Matt Smith, Donald (Putt) Puttnam, Carolyn Anderson, Gary Kapp and William Reese as well as many trips to museums and galleries studying favorite works. What evolved was a painterly style enriched by a love for study of color and a striking portrayal of light.
Conrad is honored as a Signature Member of Oil Painters of America (OPA) and American Women Artists (AWA).and has won several awards in their national exhibitions. Permanent collections sporting her work are the St. George Art Museum, Utah, the Clymer Museum in Ellensburg, Washington, Sears Museum, Utah Tech Collection and St. George Art Museum.
Recent Awards include: “Finalist” Bold Brush FASO 2026, First Place Oil, Sears Museum Invitational 2024, Finalist and Top 15% Bold Brush, Fine Art Studio Online, June 2023, Purchase Award St. George Art Museum 2021, Top15% Bold Brush Painting Fine Art Studio Online July, 2020.
Some invitational shows Bonnie has been invited to participate in include Phippen Museum’s Masters in Miniature, Briscoe Museum’s “Night of Artists”, Miniatures by the Lake, Coeur d’Alene Galleries, Mountain Oyster Club, Settler’s West Miniature, Gilcrease Museum’s America in Miniature, C.M. Russell Masters in Miniature, and Western Spirit Cheyenne, WY.
