Liz Ward
Earth’s Eye
May 10 – June 21, 2025
Reception for the Artist Saturday, May 10, 3-5 pm, Artist Talk 4 pm
Moody Gallery is pleased to present Earth’s Eye, an exhibition of new work by Liz Ward. This marks her eleventh solo exhibition with the gallery, on view May 10 – June 21, 2025. Using watercolor, painting, drawing, printmaking, and collage, Ward exhibits thirteen mixed media works on paper and on panel which explore the meaning of landscape through layers of human, natural, and environmental history, memory, and experience.
Ward states- “Water, in its many forms and meanings, connects the images in Earth’s Eye: lakes, rivers, and underground pools; water as mirror, water as time, and water as purification.
The concept of water as mirror resonates in 19th-century American art and thought. Emerson interpreted reflections in landscapes as metaphors for democracy in that the will of the people should be reflected in the laws of the nation. Thoreau described the small pond at Walden as ‘Earth’s Eye’ in which the depth of human nature was reflected. The reflected image also calls attention to the very act of visual perception and raises epistemological questions about the believability of what we see.”
Much of Ward’s work has concerned rivers, especially the Mississippi. Stopping at the St. Louis Art Museum on her annual summer migration to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, she was captivated by a painting, Marquette and Joliet on the Mississippi (1907) by Oscar Edward Berninghaus. Ward quotes this work, which features two of the Mississippi’s earliest European explorers, in several of the pieces in Earth’s Eye.
Liz Ward (b. Lafayette, Louisiana, 1959) grew up in Houston, Texas and lives and works in San Antonio, Texas and Eagle Harbor, Michigan. She attended the University of California, Santa Cruz, and received a B.F.A cum laude with honors in art from the University of New Mexico (1982). After studying art in Paris, she returned to Houston, where she received an M.F.A. in painting from the University of Houston (1990). Ward’s work is included in the collections of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Menil Collection; University of Houston, Sugarland Campus; Blanton Museum of Art; San Antonio Museum of Art; McNay Art Museum; Art Museum of Southeast Texas; Lamar University; Tyler Museum of Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, amongst others. Her work has been exhibited at many of these venues as well as at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Art Museum of South Texas; Galveston Arts Center; Flatbed Press; Weatherspoon Art Museum; and the International Print Center. Ward’s work has been recognized with a Brown Foundation Fellowship for an Artist Residency at the Dora Maar House in Ménerbes, France; two Mid-America Arts Alliance/NEA Fellowships, and the Dozier Travel Award from the Dallas Museum of Art. She has been awarded residencies at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, and Isle Royale National Park in Michigan. Ward is a professor in the Department of Art and Art History, and an Environmental Studies Faculty member, at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Her combined interests in art and the environment have led to interdisciplinary collaborative teaching and research experiences with biologists, poets, and social scientists in Colorado and Costa Rica.
Liz Ward | Earth’s Eye can be viewed online at www.moodygallery.com. For more information, please call or email the gallery at 713-526-9911 or info@moodygallery.com. Moody Gallery is open Tuesday - Friday 10:30 am – 5:00 pm and Saturday 11:00 am – 5:00 pm.