The first Walton Ford work I ever saw was his watercolor of a dying woodcock, a game bird that is also an odd bird, its large black eyes set back and high on its head. I initially thought it was an image from the 18th or 19th century—the title Sic semper tyrannis was handwritten in an antique script. Learning that it was contemporary, dated 2003, was a shock. But yes, there was something perverse there. Worms, a favorite food of woodcocks, were crawling toward the fallen bird to take their revenge. John James Audubon looms large in Ford’s retinal memory, and like Audubon, Ford works in watercolor on a magisterial scale. But unlike Audubon, Ford makes comment in his work, moving into the mythic, the magical, the bestial. He’s a meticulous naturalist, yet has a ferocious eye and a scary dark wit. This exhibition of new paintings is his first with the gallery in New York. —Laura Jacobs