Artist’s bio
Laura Ferguson is a New York artist whose drawings, paintings, and artist’s books have been exhibited
widely and are part of numerous public and private collections. For the past fifteen years she has explored issues at the intersection of art and medicine in
a unique visual autobiography, The Visible Skeleton Series.
The multi-layered works on paper that make up this series are based on medical images of her own skeleton, including x-rays and a 3D spiral CT scan.
Ferguson became interested in anatomy because of her own scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. “As I began to draw from x-rays and from the human skeleton,”
she writes, “I found the imagery quite beautiful and visually compelling. I thought it would be interesting to delve into, on many levels from the literal to the metaphorical.”
[read more of LF’s writing about making the work] Taking a scientifically rigorous approach to the depiction of anatomical structures, she developed collaborative relationships with orthopedists and radiologists, who helped her to have medical images made specifically for the purpose of art. She studied anatomy from a dance perspective, with the focus on the biomechanics of the body in motion.
In addition to galleries and other art venues, Ferguson’s work has been widely shown in settings such as medical and science museums, hospitals, medical schools and libraries, and dance performance spaces. There it resonates profoundly,
for people with disabilities or unusual anatomies or who are dealing with injury or illness, and for the medical professionals who treat them. Her work has won recognition from those in the growing movement toward restoring
the humanities to medical training, to counter medicine’s clinical detachment and foster patient-doctor dialogue.
[read how viewers respond]
[medical humanities links]
[view complete resume]
Selected exhibitions:
New York University School of Medicine
National Institutes of Health
Museum of Science, Boston, MA
National Museum of Health and Medicine, Washington, DC
Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL
Center for Book Arts, NYC
Smith Farm Center for Art and Healing
Abecedarian Gallery, Denver CO
Noho Gallery, New York, NY
Woodward Gallery, NYC
Cornell University Medical Library, NYC
Edward Hopper House, Nyack, NY
Gallery 100, Saratoga Springs, NY
Ellipse Arts Center, Arlington, VA
Penn State University, Hershey, PA
Michigan State University, E. Lansing, MI
Dance Theater Workshop Gallery, NYC
Snug Harbor Cultural Center, NYC
The United Nations, NYC
Lincoln Center Cork Gallery, NYC
Nexus Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Brunnier Art Museum, Ames, IA
Public and corporate collections:
National Library of Medicine
National Museum of Health and Medicine
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
New York University Medical Center
Medtronic Sofamor Danek
Zimmer, Inc.
VSA arts
Selected public presentations:
New York University School of Medicine
National
Museum of Health and Medicine
Michigan State University
Penn State University
The Cooper Union
College Art Association
Society for Disability Studies
National Scoliosis Foundation
Hibbs Society
Selected bibliography:
[view complete bibliography]
Alice Domurat Dreger, Ph.D., One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal (Harvard University Press)
Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles, Naked to the Bone: Medical Imaging in the Twentieth Century
(Rutger’s University Press)
Alice Domurat Dreger, Ph.D., ed., “The Visible Skeleton Series: The Art of Laura Ferguson,” a special section in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Spring 2004
(Johns Hopkins University Press) [link]
Felice Aull, Ph.D., M.A., Art Annotation, “Literature, Arts & Medicine Database” (New York University) [link]
The New York Times, The Washington Post, Washington City Paper, US Art, The Lancet, Rheumawire, Conscience, Arthritis Today, Yale Medicine
Education and study:
Anatomy study, medical research, and collaborative work with medical imaging,1992-present: Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York University Medical Center, and Irene Dowd Studio, in New York, NY; the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington, DC
Graphics and design, 1975-78: Parsons School of Design and the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
B.A., 1969: Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
1965-67: Brown University, Providence, RI
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