Flor Garduño: Mujeres fantásticas (Fantastic Women)

Garduño was born in Mexico City in 1957. She began her career as an assistant to Manuel Álvarez Bravo, and has since labored steadily, becoming a master photographer who proudly prints all of her own images. Garduño works exclusively in black and white, with an exquisite mastery of light, shadow, and darkness. To this she adds a fascination with the female body—the nude—and objects plucked from nature: ripe fruit, billowing leaves and fronds, and wild animals unexpectedly at ease. There are unworldly juxtapositions of the living and the dead, of sharpness and softness, of luminosity and opacity, and carnality and innocence.

Garduño's photographs attain an element of both earthly primacy and timeless classicism. They are uncluttered, focused, pristine, and yet invite multiple interpretations: they stimulate curiosity and invite contemplation. Garduño's images are sublime. Indeed, Garduño has been called “a poet”—a great and worthy compliment.

Garduño's photography has been published widely, and has been prominently exhibited. Her work is in the permanent collections of many renowned museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, and the Swiss Foundation of Photography in Zurich.