Walton Ford
June 1 – July 8, 2006
John Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition of works on paper by Walton Ford. The preview will be on Thursday, June 1 from 5:30-7:30pm.
When Walton Ford received his B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI, he intended to become a filmmaker. But he instead would later put his skills and talents into creating large-scale precise, ornate depictions of the natural world. For this current exhibition, Ford has created a 10-foot long watercolor depicting a ferocious lion, staring directly at the viewer while attacking an alligator in a meticulously groomed pastoral setting. An admirer of the naturalist painter John James Audubon, Ford's work satirizes the history of colonialism and forms of political oppression on today's social and environmental landscape. The animals portrayed in Ford's watercolors imbue complex symbols in scenes which evoke lessons in colonial literature and folktales.
Walton Ford (b.1960, Larchmont, NY) has received several prestigious awards including a grant in 1989 from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation; a fellowship in 1991 from the National Endowment for the Arts; and a fellowship in 1992 from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Ford's work is included in public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. The artist currently resides in upstate New York.