File:Isabella Kirkland Squat Lobsters 2021.jpg

Painting by Isabella Kirkland, Squat Lobsters (oil & alkyd on wood panel, 20" x 20", 2021). The image illustrates a major body of work in Isabella Kirkland's career in the 2010s and 2020s, when she shifted from her multi-species works toward towards species-focused series. These series catalogued a wide range of organisms—lichens, butterflies, birds, phasmid eggs and flora, among others—demonstrating the great variety that occurs within individual species. Many paintings explored aquatic life, as in this work, which depicts twelve varieties of squat lobsters. These paintings were publicly exhibited in prominent venues, discussed in major art journals and daily press publications, and presented at ecological conferences.

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 later bodies of work: her series of the 2010s and 2020s, which turned to subjects including aquatic life (e.g., wildly colorful, soft-bodied marine gastropod mollusks called nudibranchia), gravestone lichens, butterflies and birds, phasmid (walking sticks and leaf insects) eggs, and flora, among others. Many paintings depicted organisms normally invisible to the naked eye; others represented specimens of birds or butterflies, unnaturally bunched side- by-side, pinned or tagged. 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 later body of work, which brought Kirkland ongoing recognition through exhibitions in major venues, coverage by major critics and publications, and conference presentations at venues such as TED. 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.