Laura Ford

Laura Ford (born 6 February 1961) in Cardiff, Wales, is a British sculptor. She is currently president of the Royal Society of Sculptors.

Early life 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, 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.

Work 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 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.

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.

Academic career

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.

Public commissions 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

Gallery

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

Notes and reference