Creating work that resembles John James Audubon's classic images of wildlife and birds, Walton Ford subverts them to narrative painting whereby he comments on contemporary society such as its desecration of nature.

He showed early art talent as a child who was raised in the South and then studied film making at the Rhode Island School of Design. A year in Italy studying Renaissance art changed the direction of his life, and from that time he applied Old Master techniques and styles to his unique subject matter.

He settled in the Hudson River Valley of upstate New York.