Loosely based on the Spanish barajas playing card deck, Full Bloom is rooted in Lauren Moya Ford’s experiences at Madrid’s Royal Botanical Garden, the oldest of its kind in the country. There, Ford observed plants that fully transform with the seasons and plants from faraway places with beautiful scents and blooms. She also saw her shadow across plants from her own homeland—moments she found curious and bittersweet. For Ford, time in the garden was time to reflect—about her mother’s youth in that city, about who she was becoming there, about the plants that became signposts for memories and conversations she’d had with the people she’d known on the many walks she’d taken through the garden over the years.
The risograph prints included in this exhibition are drawn directly from these garden scenes, while the monoprints take another approach to these feelings and experiences. The limited-edition, risograph-printed artist book, Full Bloom, features drawings and texts that relate to the project.
This exhibition is organized by Annie May Johnston, Studio Art Faculty at The University of Texas at Austin, with the Guest Artists in Print Program.
Bio
Lauren Moya Ford (b. Boca Ratón, 1986) is an artist and writer based in Madrid. She has exhibited and performed at The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (2019); Archive Art Contemporain, Montreal (2019); Rising Tide Projects, Galveston (2019); Almost Perfect, Tokyo (2019); Artes Mota Galiza, Porto (2019); Desperate Literature, Madrid (2019); El Centro de Arte La Regenta, Las Palmas (2018), MCO Arte Contemporânea, Porto (2018); K Space Contemporary, Corpus Christi (2018); Front Gallery, Houston (2017); Centre del Carme, Valencia (2017); The Menil Collection, Houston (2016); O Sol Aceita Pele Para Ficar, Guimarães, (2016); Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Philadelphia (2016); Big Medium, Austin (2016); Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia (2016); and Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin (2015). Her writing has been published in Apollo–The International Art Magazine, Art & Object, Artsy Magazine, BOMB Magazine, Glasstire, Gulf Coast Journal, Hyperallergic, Mousse Magazine, and Sightlines. She has participated in residencies in Spain, Portugal, and the United States. Selected awards include: the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center Fellowship for Interdisciplinarity and the Frank Freed Travel Grant for research in Mexico City.