Mexican Photographer Makes a Magical First Come True For Houston’s FotoFest

International photography collectors and connoisseurs gathered at the 2025 Dinner for FotoFest: A Magical Evening Immersed in Art at Silver Street Studios, the organization’s headquarters. This luminous night — FotoFest’s first-ever artist dinner and fundraiser — spotlighted Mexican photographer Flor Garduño, whose landmark exhibition “Flor Garduño: Paths of Life” opened that night. The inaugural benefit was co-chaired by Katy and Michael Casey with Meg and Nelson Murray. Party Jess Productions was tapped for curating this artful dinner party.

Cocktail hour segued into a seated dinner crafted by Wolfgang Puck Catering. As FotoFest supporters savored the Mexican-inspired three-course feast, FotoFest executive director Steven Evans and co-founder Wendy Watriss delivered heartfelt remarks to the crowd.

“This evening was a dream of ours,” Evans noted. “It’s the first time a single artist has had their work throughout the Silver Street Studios galleries.”

Garduño then took the stage and spoke about the significance of this exhibition’s opening in Houston. 

“It’s very important and very symbolic for (me) to have this show here, for the first time, outside of Mexico,” Garduño said in Spanish, with Watriss providing translation. “It’s like coming home again to (my) own heart.”  

Garduño participated in an intimate public conversation at the MFAH’s Lynn Wyatt Theater the following Saturday. Joining Garduño were Watriss and Evans, offering a rare opportunity to hear the artist reflect on her career, vision and influences. 

About this significant exhibition: “Paths of Life” showcased Garduño’s body of work spanning 45 years. FotoFest’s Steven Evans and Madi Murphy curated more than 110 works, including previously unpublished images from her archive alongside more recent photographs. 

The retrospective was organized into six thematic sections: The Path of Yesterday, Ritualities, Construction of the Moment, Constructed Landscapes, Suspended Time, and Body and Magic. Through these photographs, Garduño explored transcendent themes of ritual, mythology, legacy, symbolic archetypes and the connection between humanity and the natural world. 

Garduño’s work is dreamlike, often described as magical realism. Her subject matter spans daily life, portraiture, fictional landscapes and still lives. She has exhibited in esteemed institutions around the world, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Musée de I’Elysée in Switzerland, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, and FotoFest. 

PC Seen: FotoFest board members including Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee with husband Chris Folmsbee, Masud Haq, and Abigail Owen-Pontez; collectors Bryn Larsen and Celso Gonzalez-Falla; CAMH co-director and COO Melissa Lujan; founder of Ruby Projects Megan Olivia Ebel; art advisor Piper Faust; president of Advocates of a Latino Museum of Cultural and Visual Arts & Archive Complex Carlos Duarte with wife Tania; Gus and Lyndall Wortham curator of photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Malcolm Daniel; Janice Yoo; Susie and Sanford Criner; Mary Kay Casey; Jenny and Jay Kempner; Chinhui Juhn and Edward Allen; Andrew Arcidiacono; and Anna Chambers.