Colossal. Bewitching. Stunningly beautiful. Disturbing. These are just a few words to begin to describe Walton Ford’s work. I went to high school with his wife and hadn’t seen her for 25 years when she surprised me at my first exhibit opening at the Starr Library in Rhinebeck. So, when he had an opening, she called to invite me. Where? The Brooklyn Museum of Art!!! The show was held before I’d started this blog. When he was the feature interview in the October issue of Art in America, it reminded me to share his work with you. His stuff is incredible and inspiring and thought-provoking.
Ford’s watercolors all feature a closeup view of one main animal in the foreground painted in a breathtaking realistic, almost Audobon style. Low on the canvas, he paints a horizon that identifies a place. The rest of the background is white which makes the animals leap off the surface. You could walk through a show of his work and just see that (almost), or you can take a closer look.
Ford is an intense man and the scenes reflect the deep thought he gives to his subjects. For example, he painted a gorilla holding Carl Akeley’s skull and titled it Sanctuary. Akeley was a taxidermist and one of the first to shoot gorillas for display in the Museum of Natural History. Later in his life, he became a gorilla advocate and frowned upon hunting them, even for study. When he died, he requested that his body be buried in the site where he’d spent so much time with the gorillas. Years later, fellow researchers came upon the site and discovered that Akeley’s bones had been exhumed. In his depiction, Ford shows a large silver-backed gorilla that Akeley had shot holding Akeley’s skull.
Nila is a 12 foot by 19 foot piece comprised of 22 panels (presumably because you can’t buy a single piece of canvas that size). A stunning study of an elephant surrounded by North American birds. I’ve forgotten the story behind it, but notice the pair making love on the end of the elephant’s penis.
My friend Paula, my sister Margaret, Ryley and I went to see the show together. I remember passing by one painting, Chingado (Spanish for fucked), where a bull is screwing a jaguar. It’s an up-close and personal view. No mistaking the action. I was afraid Ryley, then eight years old, would ask for explanation. He studied it, as he’d studied all the others, and moved on.
Walton Ford is represented by Paul Kasmin.
Hey Molly-
ReplyDeleteMichael says you can buy a canvas that large (they use them in scenic design), but the issue is trying to get the canvas into a room when they are that large.
Susie