Walton Ford's The Island

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Recommended: Survival of the fittest summary

American artist, Walton Ford’s 2009 ‘The Island’ (Source 1) depicts a disturbing pyramid of Tasmanian Tigers, or Thylacines, as they are also known, in a hostile situation of survival. This painting’s central drama contradicts Darwin and Wallace’s 1858 ‘Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection’, as man and his agricultural practices intruded the habitats of many native flora and fauna, leaving the tigers vulnerable. This struggle, or ‘survival of the fittest’, left the tigers defenseless as they had not adapted to man’s hierarchy, which in turn lead to their violent extinction by the early 20th century. Ford’s paintings are known for their harsh critique of how humanity treats nature, the history of politics, natural science and industrialism using complex narratives (artnet 2013). The bloody image portrays the physical and psychological savagery of both man and beast.

“My idea was to make an island out of thylacines and killed sheep—they’re not on an island; they are the island—and to have it sinking beneath the waves. I want it to be a brutal picture of thylacine bloodlust, a blame-the-victim picture, a sort of fever dream of the Tasmanian settler alone in the bush with these animals, although there was never any evidence of one killing a human being, and very little evidence of their eating sheep.” (Ford to Tomkins, 2009)

The artwork uses the mediums of watercolour, gouache, pencil and ink on three large pieces of paper. The main colours of the composition consist of yellow ochre and raw umber, giving the artwork an overall pale yet sinister tone. The foreground is quite busy with your eye being directed in a diagonally linear fashion from the bottom right corner to the top left corner through the direction of the tiger’s bo...

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...idges Acquires New Work by Walton Ford. Retrieved February 27, 2014, from http://artdaily.com/news/35737/Crystal-Bridges-Acquires-New-Work-by-Walton-Ford-#.Uw78CCjrfLg
• Board of Studies NSW. (2006). OUTCOMES and CONTENT. Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus (pp. 24, 28-31, 46-53). (Original work published 2000). Retrieved from http://k6.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/wps/wcm/connect/ce0d0525-fb53-44db-b4bb-f9d252549824/k6_creative_arts_syl.pdf?MOD=AJPERES.
• Source 2- GTG Publishing. (2013, November 8). White and Reddish Egret – Illustration by John James Audubon circa 1840. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from http://ctgpublishing.com/?attachment_id=13177
• Source 1- snurfson (2011, January 19). Walton Ford’s paintings of the beast kingdom [Web log message] [Web log message]. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from http://www.lypophrenia.com/2011/walton-ford’s-paintings-of-the-beast-kingdom/

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