Alan Bateman: 2008

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Festival of Trees

Thanks to everyone who attended the Festival of Trees Gala. And thank you to every one who had such kind words to say about my work. For those who don't know the painting "December"ultimately ended up selling for $15,000 my highest auction price to date. It was an exciting and stressful night for me as the auctioneer insisted in keeping me on stage during the live auction. All the money goes to a great cause (http://www.mentalhealthns.ca/). My thanks to the Keating family who treated me very well throughout the whole process.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

"December"

The painting "December" will be the the signature art piece for this years "Festival of Trees". This event is a fundraiser in support of the Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia. It is a series of events that take place over three days. There will be a black tie gala November 29th (it's already sold out). My painting will be auctioned to support the foundation. You may notice that I have a earlier blog post "Oh Auctions". Suffice it to say that as an artist, the people at Festival of Trees have treated me very well.

Monday, September 29, 2008

New Painting "December" 84x40 in.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Sumac

I just finished this painting and sent it off. I had a minor finishing disaster with this one. I was trying to go back to brush on high gloss acrylic medium. It was way too thick so I tried to wipe it off and start again. I forgot that despite being water soluble there are still solvents. I wiped off about half of the painting. So I washed the rest of the painting off with water, being careful not to rub too hard. Then, back to painting. It took me a few days to get it back to the finished state. I went back to my spray varnish. It's it's more nasty as far as VOCs go, but has a much more predictable result.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Get To Know

I am just back from presenting awards to the winners of the Robert Bateman "Get to Know", art contest for the east coast, in Moncton. I have helped out for the last three years, although I am not an official "Get to Know " employee I like helping out and it's a great program that offers free educational material to schools, including a great interactive CD. You can have a look at the site her http://www.gettoknow.ca/ There is some amazing art coming from these young people.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Lush

I have two new pieces in a group show at Argyle Fine Art in Halifax. The show is called "Lush" and is in conjunction with our best Nova Scotia wineries. The two new paintings should be on the left. "Candle and Wine" and "Grapes"
I should add for my friend Ian, who watched me start the painting of the candle and wine that I erased and painted over all of the drawing I did while you were visiting. It was better to fix it at that point than to have to paint over a work half way done.

Artists Statement (under duress)

I usually do not write long expiations regarding any one piece of my art. I am a not a writer. The paintings, at least in my genera, are the message. If you don=t relate to them any enlightenment on my part will only help you develop a more academic understanding of why I paint. As with many artists of all disciplines my inspiration comes from living. There is a cyclical nature to my life. I am not sure if my art inspires my life or if my life inspires my art. The parts of my life that translated in to paint always leave me with a better understanding of how I see.

There are certain things that are missing from my work. This has only recently occurred to me. In a subtle way they lack any marks of modernity. I would not paint a traffic sign, or a cd player. I may even edit out hydro lines. I now know why I had an unconscious need to portray things this way. It has to do with a kind of visual literacy. It seems that you use a different part of your brain for reading symbols, and putting them in context, than you do for just experiencing something. A stop sign has a message, you can=t not read it. For me this interferes with a pure experience. Although timelessness is not an intentional component of my work, it seems to be there. I don=t feel that this is an overly contrived way of painting. It just happens to be how I see my surroundings.

My ideas come from my life. I may be out side pruning a fruit tree, as well as various other things over the course of months or even years. I am always open to situations that may reveal them selves as potential painting ideas. Fortunately, for my sanity, and unfortunately, for my prolificacy, this process takes some time. If I spent all day at the easel, there would be no influx of experiences. And if I didn’t=t paint I wouldn’t=t have the intimate parts of my life revealed to me.

Although it sounds odd, some of my paintings seem to complete themselves. One of the most difficult parts of painting is knowing when to stop. I will leave a painting when it is close to being completed, and just look at it over several days. It doesn’t=t really change, but I do. There may be a few spots that need finishing, however other areas may have been completed with in the first few minutes of work.