I stumbled across this artist in New York Magazine - and I think his work is fantastic. Taschen has released a book of his work, but it costs $1800.00 - so, until I win the lottery, I will be stuck doing my research online…for free. Anyway, this is what they had to say about him:
Walton Ford’s life-sized watercolors of animals could be mistaken for 19th-century natural-science illustrations or British colonial paintings. Except they’re not. Something strange and usually sinister is happening in each of Ford’s works, whether it’s a turkey crushing a small parrot with its claw, a collection of monkeys wreaking havoc on a formally set dinner table, or a buffalo surrounded by a pack of bloodied white wolves… in the middle of a proper French garden. Executed with the deft skill of a natural-history artist, Ford’s works vibrate with an intensity of uncanny familiarity; they are both reassuring in style and disturbing in content. With titles like Au Revoir Zaire, Dirty Dick Burton’s Aide de Camp, and Space Monkey, his paintings not only blur the lines between human and animal history, but also open the doors to a world of real-life fantasy, dreams, and nightmares.
And here are some examples of his work (click to view them larger):
He is showing now through July 3rd at the Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York
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