Ute Conrad
b. 1938
Ute Conrad’s enamel on steel panels are powerfully abstract, process-driven, and highly experimental. Her training in a wide variety of printmaking and graphic arts techniques, as well as enameling, lends her work its potent expressiveness and an immediacy rarely seen in enamels. While non-representational, much of Conrad’s work is inspired by nature and by her close observation of natural phenomena. However, though she bases her work on things seen — often through a microscope – Conrad transforms these images through her distinctive form-building process. As she has stated: “I can start my work with an idea and a loan from nature and take it from there.”
Born in Halle/Salle, Germany, Ute Conrad (also known as Ute Conrad Parnemann) began her studies at the Art Academy in Braunschweig in 1958. She subsequently studied at the Academy for Visual Arts in Berlin from 1960 to 1965 where she was awarded a masters degree in 1965. In Berlin she was initially enrolled in the graphics department. However, wanting to find additional uses for her etching plates after pulling a print, she visited the school’s enamels department. From that point on, enameling became her preferred medium. As she later stated: “This is when my fascination with glass on metal started; so many possibilities, old and new techniques and the adventure of experimenting with color and design.” In Berlin she was part of a small group of artists whose work in enamel and other related media explored such issues as increasingly expansive scale, vibrant color, rich textural variety, and abstraction.
In 1968 Conrad moved to Washington, D. C. where her husband worked for the International Monetary Fund. After first settling in Alexandria, Virginia, the couple moved to Potomac, Maryland in 1975. Conrad has taught enameling at a variety of locations throughout the region including the Northern Virginia Art League, the Glen Echo Art Center, the Echo Park Art Center in Maryland, and, with Sylvia Hamers, at the Smithsonian. She regularly showed her work in The Enamelists Gallery at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria.
Conrad has been featured in many one-person and group exhibitions and her work is in numerous collections throughout the country.
https://www.enamelarts.org/ute-conrad/