About the Artist
Michelle Valborg Kondos
Kondos began her professional career by doing fine art portraiture in New Orleans, quickly rising to become one of the most in-demand portrait artists in the city and across the South. In 2018, she was chosen to paint the official portrait of New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu for the collection of the City of New Orleans. Mayor Landrieu’s portrait was her second mayoral portrait commission for the city, after having been commissioned to paint Mayor Marc Morial in 2002. Additionally, she has painted many university deans, judges, and business leaders in cities all over the South.
Kondos still maintains a busy portraiture practice in New Orleans, but in 2013 she moved to Borrego Springs in the remote California desert to pursue her fascination with Western art. Michelle had become captivated with the beauty, history, and the spirit of the American West years earlier while living in Durango, CO. Her love of horses and all things equine had already begun in childhood as she was an avid rider. Today the main areas of focus in her painting are western wildlife, people, and landscapes.
Kondos has had paintings selected for the prestigious C.M. Russell Museum Annual Auction Event in Great Falls, MT every year since 2018. She has also had work included in the Settlers West American Miniatures Show and the Mountain Oyster Club Annual Show in Tucson since 2017. She was elected a signature member of the prestigious Society of Animal Artists in 2019. Kondos was interviewed for the American Art Collector Podcast in 2023 and was also recently featured in an artist focus in the April 2024 issue of Western Art Collector Magazine. Since 2020, Kondos is pleased to have been part of the annual Cowgirl Up Show in Wickenburg, AZ, where in 2023 she received the Western Art Collector Award of Excellence, as well as the People’s Choice Award.
Her work is represented in public and private collections throughout the U.S. and Europe.
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In my work, I try to walk the line between those two realms: immediacy and vision. I try to capture the ineffable magic of the place, while still honoring its can’t-take-your-eyes-off-it reality. Trying to paint it feels like walking a tightrope. The process captures my attention just as surely as that rattlesnake does.
When I start a painting, it is like striking up a conversation with a weirdly familiar stranger. I have an image in my mind, but I never know exactly where the process will lead. I am always trying to find that fulcrum-point between, on one hand, western reality – and, on the other hand, that mysterious West that seems to lie behind the world we grasp with our senses, whether we are looking a majestic landscape or a humble antelope squirrel.
I paint realistically in an age of abstraction. Bless us all – but to me just trying to unravel what lies before my eyes out here in this sacred landscape is discipline enough. I’ve been staring at it all, as perhaps only an artist can, for a very long time, and I still always feel that the West is trying to tell me something, something I can’t quite grasp – but maybe, just maybe I can get it onto a canvas.
Sometimes I think see that holy ghost of the West in there, shining out through the paintings I do. Those are the paintings I love. Those are the ones I show. The rest get painted over.
Oil Painters of America National Exhibition, Steamboat Art Museum, Steamboat Springs, CO 2018
Unveiling of official portrait of Mayor Mitch Landrieu for City of New Orleans 2018
Settlers West American Miniatures Show, Tucson, AZ 2019
C.M.Russell Museum Exhibition and Friday Night Strike Auction Event, Great Falls, MT 2019
Western Spirit Art Show and Sale, Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum, Cheyenne, WY 2019
Bosque Classic Art Show and Sale, Bosque Arts Center, Clifton, TX- September 2019
Briscoe Museum of Western Art- 59th Annual Exhibition of Society of Animal Artists- September 2019
Elected to Signature Status by the Society of Animal Artists 2019
Mountain Oyster Club Western Art Show and Sale, Tucson, AZ- November 2019
March In Montana Western Art Auction, Great Falls, MT 2020
Cowgirl Up! Desert Caballeros Museum, Wickenburg, AZ- March 2020
Bosque Classic Art Show and Sale, Bosque Arts Center, Clifton, TX- September 2020
Montana Miniatures- Biitterroot Fine Art Gallery, Hamilton, MT- September 2020
Mountain Oyster Art Annual Show and Sale, Tucson, AZ- November 2020
Cowgirl Up! Desert Caballeros Western Museum, Wickenburg, AZ - March 2021
Women Artists of the West National Show, Museum of Western Art, Kerrville, TX - January 2021
Mountain Oyster Club Annual Show and Sale, Tucson, AZ - November 2021
Settlers West Annual American Miniatures Show,Tucson, AZ - February 2022
Western Spirit Art Show and Sale, Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum, Cheyenne, WY - March 2022
Cowgirl Up! Desert Caballeros Western Museum, Wickenburg, AZ - March 2022
Settlers West Annual American Miniatures Show, Tucson, AZ - February 2023
The Russell Exhibition and Auction, C.M. Russell Museum, Great Falls, MT - August 2023
Cowgirl Up! Desert Caballeros Western Museum, Wickenburg, AZ - March 2023
Western Art Collector Award of Excellence, Cowgirl Up - 2023
People’s Choice Award, Cowgirl Up - 2023
Interviewed on American Art Collective Podcast, August 2023
Featured in Fine Art Connoissuer Magazine wildlife issue - October 2023
Artist Focus article in Western Art Collector - April 2024
