About
Welcome to Barbara Batemans website,the online exhibition and gallery of an exceptionally talented Australian landscape artist.
Born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in 1946. She has always been an artist and has observed and responded artistically to her life experiences. Said one of her teachers at RMIT: "Barbara has a passion and commitment necessary to pursue painting through the years". This website is about the way she views the Australian Landscape that she knows and loves.
As a child growing up in country Victoria, many hours were spent during Barbara's Primary and Secondary Schooling drawing features of her environment. In those early years Barbara received Art Prizes for her endeavours.
She attended RMIT and completed a Diploma of Fine Arts and later did a Bachelor of Education focussing on Art Education at Melbourne University.
Barbara spent 25 years teaching Secondary students to love the Arts and she assisted in their development as artists. She taught at Billanook College, Tintern ACGS abd Huntingtower School. She was Head of the Art Departments in each school and taught her students how to paint with amazing success.
After retirment from teaching Barbara now draws and paints the sea and bush environment from her property near the seaside town of Lorne on The Great Ocean Road in Victoria. The Otway bush environment, the Australian Outback and figures in the landscape are all important themes. The artworks range in size from 153 x 137cm down to smaller works of 46 x 56cm.
Barbara is interested in the act of painting using a variety of media such as Oils, Acrylic, Waterclour, Gouache and Charcoal.
Barbara works in the 'plein-air' tradition, encompassed by the bush to paint the sensed reality observed. She is not interested in painting a representational or descriptive view of the landscape, rather her paintings express her internal memories and subjective experiences. She is interested in the celebration of the act of seeing colours, shapes and textures by both herself and the viewer. Her paintings describe the joyful act of seeing and are a discovery of Barbara's inner consciousness.
Her works have been purchased by many in Australia and America, England, Ireland and Germany. Barbara regularly has exhibitions where her paintings and drawings are sold.