Thedra Cullar-Ledford, the only child of two struggling artists, was born in Abilene, Texas, later moved to Mexico City and then to Eagle Pass, a dusty little noplace on the Texas/Mexico border. At 16, she was emancipated so that she could move to Dallas by herself to attend the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. From there, she received a full scholarship to California College of the Arts where she met Stephen on the very first day. They were married by age 21. She received a BFA cum laude in painting and then attended the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford University in the UK for a masters in printmaking and sculpture. The family moved 16 times in 20 years before settling in Houston to establish her practice and build Independence Art Studios which provides studio spaces to other Houston artists. They have two grown sons, a dog, two cats, and six chickens.
“Thedra has been one of the biggest personalities and presences on the Houston scene for over a decade. A quintessential bad girl, her humorously aggressive feminist statements and explorations of the perversity of Texas’ masculinist iconography have been widely exhibited and collected. She uses the familiar deformities of plastic doll bodies to speak to the way girls are indoctrinated into their social roles.” Bill Arning, Former Executive Director, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
Things got real in 2013 when, in her attempt to donate a kidney to a friend, she was found to have breast cancer and required a double mastectomy. Suddenly she found herself learning a sociopolitical landscape in which a largely male medical establishment was telling women patients what to do, think, and feel about their bodies. She encountered a community of like-minded breast cancer activists who, in the her words, felt no compunction to reconstruct their bodies to erase their post-surgery differences and thereby allow others ‘the freedom to not think about cancer.’”
“I think as I get further from the intensity of being in the moment of dealing with cancer, it becomes more and more abstract. I can still talk about breast cancer specifically, but I think my work will go back to the same themes I’ve talked about for a while — cultural impositions on women — with unreconstructed breast cancer survivors like myself being Exhibit A of things gone too far.”
Education
Christ Church,
Oxford University
Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art,
Oxford, UK,
MA, Printmaking/Sculpture May 1994
California College
of Arts & Crafts,
Oakland, California,
BFA cum laude, Painting May 1992
Booker T. Washington
High School of the Visual
& Performing Arts,
Dallas, Texas, May 1988
Solo Exhibitions
“Petals and Spikes” Heidi Vaughan Fine Art, Houston, Texas, January 2023
“Smells Like Good Times” Prince Street Gallery, New York, NY, June 2021
“Dollies and Villians” Heidi Vaughan Fine Art, Houston, Texas, September 2020
“Endollenations” Ivy Brown Gallery, New York, NY, February 2019
“Accoutrements” Vaughan Mason Fine Art, Houston, Texas, September 2018
“Lady Part Follies” Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, Texas, August 2016
“Drawing the Eye to Nothingness” G Gallery, Houston, Texas, April 2015
“Small Stains, Big Problems” Independence Art Studios, Houston, Texas, December 2013
“Living Dolls” New Gallery, Houston, Texas, January 2012
“Encase: To Wrap Up in Something Solid” Robert McClain & Co. Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, November 2008
“Domicile” Thomas Werner Gallery, New York, NY, September 2003
“Biometrica” McClain Gallery, Houston, Texas, July 2002
“Other People’s Lives” Lawndale Art Center, Houston, Texas, April 2000
“Solo Exhibition” Robert McClain & Co. Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, October 1997
“Contain, Order, Move: The Box as Fundamental Form” Lawndale Art and Performance Center, Houston, Texas, January 1997
“Solo Collection” Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford, England, May 1993
“Cradle to the Grave” Freud’s London, London, England, March 1993
“Cradle to the Grave” Freud’s Oxford, Oxford, England, November 1992
Group Exhibitions
Bill Arning Exhibitions at the Outsider Art Fair, New York, NY, March 2023
“Figurish” Bill Arning Exhibitions, Houston, Texas, January 2023
“Betwixt” Bill Arning Exhibitions at Flatland Gallery, Houston, Texas, March 2020
“2020 Biennale: More is More” Contemporary Art Museum Plainview, Plainview, Texas, March 2020
“Extravagant Drawing” G Spot Gallery, Houston, Texas, January 2020
“No Trigger Warnings” Bill Arning Exhibitions at Flatland Gallery, Houston, Texas, October 2019
“Powerful Vulnerable” Aurora Picture Show, Houston, Texas, September 2019
“Texas Extravagant Drawing” Fiendish Plots, Lincoln, Nebraska, September 2019
“P-Town Babies” Art Market Provincetown, Provincetown, Massachusetts, September 2019
“bOObs-Wir zeigen Brust” Karl Oskar Gallery, Berlin, Germany, February 2019
“Art Exhibition of the 2017 National Women’s Conference” University of Houston, Houston, Texas, November 2017
“St. Valentine” Zoya Tommy Gallery, Houston, Texas, February 2017
“Cleave: Thedra Cullar-Ledford and Charise Isis” Nicole Longnecker Gallery, Houston, Texas, August 2016
“Powerful Babies” Spiritmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden, September 2015
“Confluence” G Gallery, Houston, Texas, January 2014
“Hullabaloo: Holiday ShaBang!” gallery HOMELAND, Houston, Texas, December 2013
“Spring Introduction” Avis Frank Gallery, Houston, Texas, March 2013
“10 Houston Artists: An Invasion of Space for 2011 Contemporary Art Month” Hilton Palacio Del Rio, San Antonio, Texas, March 2011
“H2O Houston to Hyderabad” Muse Gallery, Hyderabad, India, January 2011
“Five Texas Artists: A Portrait Series” Enid Street Gallery, Houston, Texas, December 2010
“Red Velvet” Vine Street Studios, organized by Rudolph Projects, Houston, Texas, June 2007
“Book Works” Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, Texas, January 2007
“Small Works” McClain Gallery, Houston, Texas, December 2001
“Texas Dialogues: Houston-San Antonio” Blue Star Art Space, San Antonio, Texas, December 2001
“Daily Life” ArtScan Gallery, Houston, Texas, September 2001
“Sculpture 2000” Robert McClain & Co. Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, June 2000
“Urban Girls” El Museo Francisco Oller y Diego Rivera, Buffalo, New York, April 2000
“Mania” Art Car Museum, Houston, Texas, December 1999
“Dadayou Dadahou” ArtScan Gallery, Houston, Texas, September 1999
“Revelation” Dallas Visual Arts Center, Dallas, Texas, December 1997
“Little Treasures” Robert McClain & Co. Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, December 1997
“Talented Americans” The Art League of Houston, Houston, Texas, October 1997
“Spirit in the Flesh” Stuart Levy Gallery, New York, NY, June 1996
“Edith Lambert Gallery” Edith Lambert Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, November 1994
“Final Collections” Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford, England, July 1994
“House Work” Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford, England, February 1994
“Group Collection” Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford, England, December 1993
“Ruskin Exhibition” Byam Shaw School, London, England, February 1993
“Ruskin School Exhibition” Christ Church Upper Library, Oxford, England, February 1993
“Senior Show 1992” Tecoah Bruce Gallery, Oliver Arts Center, Oakland, California, May 1992
Juried Exhibitions
“Seattle Erotic Art Festival” Seattle Center, Seattle, Washington, April 2017
“SITE Houston” The Silos on Sawyer, Houston, Texas, November 2015
“2010 Big Show” Lawndale Art Center, Houston, Texas, July 2010
“2000 Critic’s Choice” Dallas Visual Art Center, Dallas, Texas, June 2000
“Transcending Limits” Jones Center for Contemporary Art, Austin, Texas, April 1999
“The 173rd Annual Exhibition” National Academy Museum, New York, NY, April 1998
“New American Talent: The Thirteenth Exhibition” Texas Fine Art Association, Tour through Texas (Univ. of North Texas Art Gallery, Blue Star Art Space, San Antonio, Jones Center for Contemporary Art, Austin, September 1997
“Women’s Work” A.I.R. Gallery, New York, NY, June 1996
“New American Talent: The Twelfth Exhibition” Texas Fine Art Association, Tour through Texas (Univ. of North Texas Art Gallery, Blue Star Art Space, San Antonio, Austin Museum of Art,Austin,Texas A&M University Art Gallery, College Station, and the Art League of Houston), June 1996
“Healing Works” Woman-Made Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, May 1996
“Bags and Baggage: New Form/New Function” Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, November 1995
“December Competition ‘95” Lubbock Fine Arts Center, Lubbock, Texas, November 1995
“11th Annual Competition” Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, California, July 1995
“North American Sculpture Exhibition” Foothills Art Center, Golden, Colorado, April 1995
“First Cut” The Cut Gallery, London, England, July 1994
“66th Annual Crocker-Kingsley Exhibition” Crocker Museum, Sacramento, California, April 1991
Installations
“Go Big” The George Hotel, College Station, Texas, October 2017
“Obama” Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas, June 2009
“Hoopla!” Vine Street Studios, Houston, Texas, September 2000
“Installation” Hillcrest Professional Development School, Waco, Texas, August 1998
“Open Door Arts Fest” The Art Center of Waco, Waco, Texas, October 1997
“House Painters” Christ Church Upper Library, Oxford, England, February 1993
Residencies/Visiting Artist
Artist-in-Residence, Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston, Texas, January – March 2023
Doe House residency, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, February 2021
St. Mary’s Calne visiting artist, Calne, England, 2017, 2018, and 2019
EastOverArts residency, Rochester, Massachusetts, August 2019
Herekeke Arts Center residency, Questa, New Mexico, June 2019
Vermont Studio Center residency, Johnson, Vermont, February 2018
Flat and Fabulous art residency, Berlin, Germany, September 2015
Teaching
Lone Star Community College,
Cypress, Texas, Adjunct faculty, August 2010 – May 2012
Susanne M. Glasscock School of
Continuing Studies at Rice University, Houston, Texas, Lecturer, September 2007 – December 2007
The Art Institute of Houston, Full-time faculty, October 2006 – December 2009
The Art Institute of New York City, Full-time faculty, January 2003 – October 2005
The Art Institute of Houston, Adjunct faculty, October 2000 – December 2002
The School of the Austin Museum of Art, Part-time teacher, June 1996 – October 1998