Bettie Ward (b. 1947) is an American artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A painter, textile and multimedia artist, and sculptor, Ward is known for her dreamlike, color-driven work that explores transformation, intuition, and the deep interconnectedness of nature and humanity. Her art bridges Neo-Surrealism and Magic Realism, and is a spectacularly imaginative blend of fantasy, whimsy and the use of visual language to express internal mythologies and landscapes of the spirit. An especially colorful biography has undoubtedly influenced the vividness of her visually rich and imaginatively vibrant forms of storytelling that characterize her narrative paintings. Ward was raised as the “cowgirl daughter of an old-world rancher” and her early life was shaped by the wildness of the American West. She began riding horses at a young age and became a top ten competitive Saddlebred rider in the United States for six years. This intense physical relationship with powerful animals continues to inform her creative process. “Even now,” she writes, “in the making of objects, they are like talking to my horse, urging him to go on, feeling him under me as we fly around the ring. It is ever magic—not analysis but intuition, streams of consciousness, poetry and embraces.” Bettie Ward studied at Trinity University under Robert Tiemann in the late 1960s, and later received her BFA from the San Antonio Art Institute, affiliated with the McNay Art Museum, graduating Summa Cum Laude while attending classes with her youngest son. She also pursued traditional craft studies during the 1970s, immersing herself in embroidery, Pima basketry, and textile arts, laying the foundation for the diverse range of media in her practice. Ward’s life has been marked by exciting, often cinematic moments—riding over rattlesnakes as a child, sitting beside John Wayne during the filming of The Alamo, and playing shuffleboard with Vincent Price during summers in La Jolla. But it is the quiet beauty of desert flowers and the wild spiritual sensations of her imagination that most deeply shape her art. Her works are imbued with themes of growth, romance, renewal, cycles, and the earth as a living home. Ward is a co-founder of the Artists Foundation of San Antonio and her work has been exhibited at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, TX (Womanish: Audacious, Courageous, Willful Art, 2023). “My paintings are proof that I exist,” Ward writes. “They are evidence of my personal energy. Art is what keeps me feeling the wind in my hair. It teaches me about the fragility of life, the benevolence of mankind, and the divine voice that lives in all things.”