Walton Ford
"What I’m doing, I think, is a sort of cultural history of the way animals live in the human imagination.”
Artist
Walton
Ford (1960) went to the Rhode Island School of Design majoring in film making
though decided to instead become an artist painting large scale oil paintings.
He had always
had a dream that he would, as a kid, grow up as a natural history artist,
living on the edge of a national forest and going out and drawing animals
Interested
in colonialism, descending from slave owners
The Island
Artwork
He wanted
to create art in a way so it would no longer be viewed as a cliché attempting to
“make images that look familiar appear unfamiliar”
He was
interested in incorporating both the violent nature of animals as well as the
destruction of human intervention
Each of
the paintings have hidden messages, codes and symbols that give lessons in the
destructive nature of colonialism.
Fords work
usually contains a mixture of revulsion and attraction
Audience
His
realistic style has been compared by critics to those of past science books
They
compliment on the contrasting nature of his paintings, which place emphasis on
violence
World
21st
Century…
Zoomorphism
Ford uses
animals as a symbol of the evil of colonialism and its destructive nature
He uses
bold colours which help to emphasise how what seems beautiful and right to one
person can be seen as destructive to another
Influence on my artmaking Process
His use of
strong bold colours and emphasis on line is similar to that of my work
While I do
not have the same realistic perspective I am presenting beauty and destruction
in my work particurly the interaction between different culture like Ford
Pancha Tancha
See Also
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