BARBARA BATEMAN’S STATEMENT FOR
COLOURFUL EXPERIENCE EXHIBITION
21ST JUNE – 21ST JULY 2023
Over many years Barbara has drawn and painted her natural bush and sea environment from her property on the Great Ocean Road near Lorne.
Most of these paintings were created at her property during the Covid Pandemic lockdown.
“Plein-air” is a key aspect of my practice. When I go to a new place in my landscape I sketch, make gouache paintings and take photographs to record what I see directly. Then I enter the studio to create mainly oil paintings that interlink what I have observed with my memories and subjective experiences.
I filter my thoughts and ideas in a reflective way in order to arrange the colours, shapes and textures together to create multiple pathways over, in and around the spaces allowing equal weight to the objects and background, providing a world of abstract retinal pleasure to the whole composition.
My work hovers between two poles of abstraction and representation and are intensely personal.
