BIOGRAPHY
Laura Ford studied at Bath Academy of Art between 1978-82 including a period at the Cooper Union School of Art, New York. Her tutors included Michael Pennie, Richard Deacon, Nick Pope, Antony Gormley, Peter Randall-Page, Shelagh Cluett and Anish Kapoor. She was included in New Contemporaries in 1982 before joining the postgraduate sculpture course at Chelsea School of Art in London.
While still a student, she participated in the 1983 survey exhibition, The Sculpture Show at The Serpentine and Hayward Galleries alongside artists including, Richard Wentworth, Tony Cragg, David Nash and many of her tutors. 27 years later she participated in The British Art Show 5 alongside a new array of British artists that included Phyllida Barlow, Jeremy Deller, Michael Landy and Susan Hiller, Tracy Emin and Sarah Lucas. In 2005 she represented Wales in the Venice Biennale.
During the intervening years and beyond she has had numerous solo and group shows around the world including 2012 'Days of Judgment', Kulturzentrum Englische Kirche , Galerie Scheffel, Bad Homburg and at The New Art Centre, Roche Court, 2011 Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, USA, 2007, 'Rag and Bone', Turner Contemporary, Margate, 2006 'Armour Boys', Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 2005, Venice Biennale for Wales, 2004, 'Wreckers', Beaconsfield, 2004 'Into My World: Recent British Sculpture', Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Connecticut, USA, London, 2003, 'Headthinkers', Houldsworth Gallery, Cork Street, 2002, 'The Great Indoors', Salamanca Centre of Contemporary Art, Spain, 1998, Camden Arts Centre, London (with Jacqui Poncelet).
Her work is represented in many public collections including; Tate, The Victoria and Albert Museum, Government Art Collection, Potteries Museum, National Museums and Gallery of Wales; Museum of Modern Art, University of Iowa; Arts Council of Great Britain; Contemporary Art Society; Unilever plc; Penguin Books; Oldham Art Gallery, The New Art Gallery Walsall, The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, The Meijier Gardens, Grand Rapids USA and The Gateway Foundation, St. Louis, as well as numerous private collections.
Her sculptures are faithful representations of fantasy with sometimes bitter sweet and menacing qualities mixed with tenderness. She uses humour and an acute observation of the human condition to engage with wider social and political issues. Her work is intensely crafted but playful, and she has used a range of media to realise her work including, drawing, painting, performance, set design and has increasingly taken on the challenge of public art alongside museum and gallery shows.
'Ford provides us with acutely graphic renditions of human emotion, mental and physical. Her imagery is all about remembering and giving memory clarity.'
Dr. Penelope Curtis
Laura Ford lives and works in West Sussex alongside her husband, the sculptor Andrew Sabin.
Photo by Anne Purkiss