2024 Bighorn Rendezvous – Karen Conduff

Karen Conduff is a Colorado-based artist known for her juicy, textural oil paintings of pretty much anything encountered in real life. Never one to tolerate being limited in her choices, Conduff paints it all – still life, landscape, figure, wildlife. Jamie Wyeth once said “You have to love a medium to work in it. I love the feel and smell of oil. I could eat it”. Introduced to oils at the age of nine, Conduff has had a lifelong love affair with oil paint and uses luscious brushstrokes to evoke the buttery texture of an avocado or the wooly coat of a sheep. Viewers often remark that they feel as if they could reach out and pull the subject right off her canvas.
Born in 1957, Conduff received her BA in Art in 1979 from the University of Arkansas where she gained a solid foundation in drawing. She followed this with many years of intensive study with various artists including Skip Whitcomb, Mark Daily, and Kevin Weckbach, all of whom instilled in her the value of painting from life on a regular basis.
Conduff’s exhibits include a solo show at Macky Auditorium and a duo show at Rembrandt Yard Gallery in Boulder, Colorado, where she has resided since 1980. Her numerous juried group exhibitions include shows at the Brinton Museum in Big Horn WY, the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder CO, the Blumenschein Museum in Taos NM, and Mary Williams Fine Arts Gallery in Boulder CO.
Her work resides in numerous public and private collections throughout the United States and Europe, including the Brinton Museum in Big Horn Wyoming.