Laura Ford

Growing up in a travelling fairground family, Ford was educated at Stonar School in Wiltshire, and then at Bath Academy of Art from 1978 to 1982,{{Cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/laura-ford-inside-the-welsh-sculptors-humorous-and-often-terrifying-work-a6928996.html|title=Inside Welsh sculptor Laura Ford's humorous and often terrifying work|date=2016-03-13|work=The Independent|access-date=2017-08-19|language=en-GB}} while spending a term at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York City. In 1982, she was invited to take part in the annual New Contemporaries exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and then studied at the Chelsea School of Art from 1982 to 1983.{{Cite news|url=http://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/showbiz/sculptor-laura-fords-fairground-childhood-1848288|title=Sculptor Laura Ford's fairground childhood|last=Wightwick|first=Abbie|date=2011-03-26|work=walesonline|access-date=2017-08-19}}

Ford has lived and worked in London since 1982 and has been identified with the New British Sculpture movement since her participation in the 1983 survey exhibition The Sculpture Show at the Serpentine Gallery and The Hayward,{{citation needed|date=October 2013}} as well as participating in the British Art Show 5 in 2000.

file:Weeping_Girls_by_Laura_Ford_(2).jpg

Marcello Spinelli wrote (British Art Show 5): "Ford's creatures are faithful representations of fantasy and, at times, a nightmarish imagination. With their bitter-sweet, menacing and endearing qualities, her stuffed animals and dolls appeal to childhood memories and inhabit a world we immediately recognize as somewhat familiar."{{quote without source|date=October 2013}}

Her work is represented in many public collections, including the Tate Gallery,{{Cite news|url=http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ford-moose-t07580|title='Moose', Laura Ford, 1998 {{!}} Tate|last=Tate|work=Tate|access-date=2017-08-19|language=en-GB}} the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Government Art Collection, Potteries Museum, National Museums and Gallery of Wales; Museum of Modern Art, University of Iowa; the Arts Council of Great Britain; the Contemporary Art Society; Unilever; Penguin Books; Oldham Art Gallery, The New Art Gallery Walsall, The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, and Citygarden, St. Louis, MO, USA.{{citation needed|date=January 2013}}

She has exhibited widely, including: Solo, 2012 Days of Judgement, Kulturzentrum Englische Kirche und Galerie Scheffel, Bad Homburg, and The New Art Centre, Roche Court, UK, 2011 Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, 2007, Rag and Bone, Turner Contemporary, Margate, 2006, Armour Boys, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 2004, Wreckers, Beaconsfield, London, 2003, Ford Headthinkers, Houldsworth Gallery, Cork Street. 2002, The Great Indoors, Salamanca Centre of Contemporary Art, Spain, 1998, Camden Arts Centre, London (with Jacqui Poncelet) Group, 2011, with Magdalena Abakanowicz, at the Industriemuseum Westfälisches Landesmuseum, Bocholt, Germany, 2005, Venice Biennale for Wales, 2004, Into My World: Recent British Sculpture, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Connecticut, USA, with Matt Franks, Roger Hiorns, James Ireland, Jim Lambie, and Mike Nelson.

Between 1983 and 1995, Ford was a lecturer at Chelsea School of Art and Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University, also teaching extensively at most London art schools.{{citation needed|date=January 2013}}

• 2014: Southmeads Hospital, Bristol
• 2012: University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany
• 2009: City Stockholm, Sweden
• 2007: "Look Ahead", Short-Term Housing Project
• 2006: "Weeping Girls", Jupiter Artland
• 2002: Swiss Cottage Children's Library, London
• 2001–02: Swiss Cottage Children’s Library, London
• 1998: British High Commission, Ottawa
• 1997: Surrey Docks/Dockland Development Agency
• 1993: "Chiltern Sculpture Trail", Oxford
• 1989–90: West Bromwich Town Centre, WBC/PADT

File:'Armour Boys'.jpg|"Armour Boys", Houldsworth Gallery, 2006

File:'Armour Boys' Sweden.jpg|"Armour Boys" (installed at Sculpture in Pilane, Sweden), 2006

File:'Rag and Bone', Laura Ford, Stockholm, 1998.jpeg|"Rag and Bone", Stockholm, 1998

File:'Rag and Bone', Laura Ford, 2007.jpeg|"Rag and Bone", 2007

File:'Headthinkers'.jpg|Houldsworth Gallery, London, 2003

File:'Moose', Laura Ford, 1998.jpeg|"Moose", 1998

File:LauraFord.ChinaCats.1.jpg|"China Cats"

Ford lives and works in Camden alongside her husband, the sculptor Andrew Sabin, and their three children.

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• [https://www.lauraford.net/ Official website]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20131109104625/http://grizedalesculpture.org/index.php/laura-ford Grizedale Sculpture Laura Ford]
• [http://www.villa-wessel.de/AusstellungsSeiten/Laura_Ford_2015/laura_ford_2015.html Laura Ford - Große Einzelausstellung in der Villa Wessel in Iserlohn 17. April 2015 – 21. Juni 2015]

{{New British Sculpture}}

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Category:1961 births

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century British sculptors

Category:20th-century Welsh women artists

Category:20th-century British women sculptors

Category:21st-century Welsh women artists

Category:21st-century British women sculptors

Category:Alumni of Bath School of Art and Design

Category:Alumni of Chelsea College of Arts

Category:Artists from Cardiff

Category:Welsh contemporary artists

Category:Welsh women sculptors

Category:21st-century Welsh sculptors