BERLIN.-A troop of monkeys celebrate a
feast, a panther wanders across a snowy Alpine landscape and a pack of white
wolves surround a buffalo dripping blood in a manicured French garden. At first
glance Walton
Ford’s large-scale animal watercolour paintings
evoke prints by French and British colonial-era illustrators from the 19th
century. After closer examination however, they reveal a pictorial
universe of complex and disturbing allusions. The various tigers, lions, birds
and primates that populate the life-size pictures appear as vivacious
protagonists locked in allegorical struggles. The resulting combination
of historical fact, natural history inquiry and surreal imaginings give rise to
Walton Ford’s brilliant ‘Bestiarium’.