BIO

Manette Rene Bradford (b. 1978, St. Paul, MN) constructs imagined allegorical narratives through painting, sculpture, and wall-sized mixed media collage for specific geographic locations, historical moments, or ecological conditions. Manette combines historical, ecological, and folkloric research with her own documentation and direct experience of place to develop her work. The act of building these fictional narratives around a specific location imitates what is often the subject of her work: our species’ behavioral impulse to possess, anthropomorphize, and project itself onto the land and surrounding biospheres.

Manette earned a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2022, she was awarded the Montana Art Gallery Director's Association Exhibition Sponsorship for Unsettled Lands, which will tour Montana from 2024-2026. The tour will exhibit at six locations throughout Montana, including the Montana Museum of Art and Culture, the Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art, and the C.M. Russell Museum. Additionally, she has exhibited in solo and group shows in San Francisco, Chicago, and across Montana. Manette was interviewed as the subject of an episode of Resounds: Arts and Culture on the High Plains, which aired on May 22, 2023, and of the Art House podcast, The Makers, Episode 3, which aired on May 15, 2025. She was the Artist in Residence at the Yellowstone Art Museum in 2025. Manette lives and works in Montana.