Opening Reception and Artist Talk: Unsettled Lands by Manette Rene Bradford

Located in Billings, emerging artist Manette uses watercolor, acrylic, paper collage, and ceramic sculpture, to engage with themes from the mythic American West. Masculinity, heroism, mastery, and stewardship over the land are suggested with a raw and brazen effect. Manette strives to unearth the legacy of western settlement and the overwhelming impulse behind the act of possession. Recognizable Montana landscapes are merged with the male form to create a thought-provoking composition.
She renders both human form and landscape in raw sepia, the resulting effect organically encapsulates both body and land while eliminating the distinction between the two. The figure is enlarged, nude, eroded, and vulnerable to act in contrast to the legend of the heroic frontiersman. The landscapes of Montana are depicted at origin; pure, open, untethered and thus harmonious with the naked body enmeshed within. The work hints at the primal desire for man to not simply acquire but to meld and absorb with the land.