File:Isabella kirkland forest floor 2007.jpg

Painting by Isabella Kirkland, Forest Floor (oil on polyester over panel, 36" x 60", 2007). The image illustrates a major body of work in Isabella Kirkland's career in the late 2000s and early 2010s, her "Nova" series. The four works in this series—which—which each took a year or more to execute—involve careful research using original scientific descriptions, specimens, rubrics and databases often made available to viewers through keys or explanatory texts. It resulted in large, lush works composed like tapestries that both celebrate decorative beauty and address environmental degradation and homogenization. Each explores one level of a typical tropical rainforest, in case of this work, the forest floor. These paintings were publicly exhibited in prominent venues, discussed in major art journals and daily press publications, and acquired by museums.

Artist Isabella Kirkland. Copyright held by the artist.

Isabella Kirkland

Entire artwork

Yes. The image will not affect the commercial value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original due to its low resolution and the general workings of the art market, which values the actual work of art. Because of the low resolution, illegal copies could not be made.

The image has contextual significance serving an informational and educational purpose as the primary means of illustrating Isabella Kirkland's mid-career "Nova" series, (2007–11), which consisted of four works exploring the complexity and interdependency of life through depictions of 250 newly discovered plant and animals. The series' profusely detailed tableaux each represent a strata of a typical tropical rainforest, reflected in the paintings' titles: Forest Floor, Understory, Canopy and Emergent (the treetop level). They meticulously depict species that do not necessarily belong together, generally at scale, in what are metaphoric ecosystems. Because the article is about an artist and her work, the omission of the image would significantly limit a reader's understanding and ability to understand this key body of work, which brought Kirkland ongoing recognition through exhibitions in major venues, coverage by major critics and publications, and museum acquisitions. Kirkland's work of this type and this series, as well as this specific work, are discussed in the article and by critics cited in the article.

There is no free equivalent of this or any other of this series by Isabella Kirkland, so the image cannot be replaced by a free image.

The image use is minimal in that it conveys important information that a full artwork image at a limited fair-use size cannot due to the uniquely hyper-detailed nature of the work. By providing a close-up of the artist's style and imagery, it is significantly more informative for a viewer. It is also a further protection (along with the low resolution) against affecting commercial value.