(Drivebycuriosity) - I love the art of Walton Ford. The American is famous for his naturalist paintings. Wikipedia writes: "Each of his paintings is a meticulous, realistic study in flora and fauna, and is filled with symbols, clues, and jokes referencing texts ranging from colonial literature, to folktales, to travel guides" (wikipedia).
According to gallery Gagosian "Ford’s practice centers on how animals are represented and the intersections of animal and human lives". In 2018 I posted about his majestic Barbary lions @ gallery Kasmin ( driveby).
Last week I spotted a new Walton Ford exhibition, this time @ gagosian. The gallery displayed his show "Tutto". The title refers to a poem by Gabriele D’Annunzio. Ford focus on a single individual: the eccentric Milanese heiress Luisa Casati (1881–1957). Depicting the exotic animals that she kept, Ford portrays her years in Venice shortly before World War I.
Known as La Marchesa, Casati was one of Europe’s wealthiest women and is legendary for her extravagant pursuit of aesthetic extremes and social recognition. Startled onlookers describe how she wore snakes as necklaces, walked with a pair of cheetahs in Venice’s piazzas, and attended an opera clad in a headdress of peacock feathers that were stained with the blood of a freshly killed chicken.
On top of this post you can see the wall filling "La Marchesa" (2014, watercolor, gouache, and ink paper, 60 1/4 X 115 1/4 inches/ 153 X 2927 cm) followed by 3 detail shots.
Then follow "Tutto fu ambito e tutto fu tentato" (2025, watercolor, gouache, and ink paper); "Desiderio infinito" (2025); "La levata de sole" (2025) & "Forse che si forse che no" (2024).
To be continued
No comments:
Post a Comment