c.v.

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Hi Rock
Sorry I wasn’t there or even in touch last night, 2 sick kids who are also off today and Caroline had to go out for a bit. I will be able to come over tonight after dinner, and I also met with success at the store. I’ll either email a c.v. or bring a copy of one with me. What the hell, I’ll just bang one together now.

Bill Batten
Born 1964, London, Ont.
Studied Fine Art from 1983 – 1989 at a succession of schools including St. Lawrence College (Kingston, Ont.), Mt Allison University and Concordia University with forays into English Literature at Queens University and cultural studies at Trent University.

In addition to involvement in student shows, the following serves as an encapsulation of exhibition hi-lights:

Solo Exhibitions :

1989 Spatches Cafe, Montreal, P.Q.
1990 The Electric City Garden, Peterborough, Ont.
1991 The Electric City Garden, Peterborough, Ont.
1992 Artist in Residence and Exhibition, ArtSpace Gallery, Peterborough, Ont.
1993 The Frame Shop and Gallery, Peterborough, Ont.
1995 Chaos Cafe, Peterborough, Ont.
1996 Luna Galleria, Millbrook, Ont.
1999 The Gordon Best Theatre, Peterborough, Ont.

Group Exhibitions

1990 – 2000 Annual Member and/or 50/50 Exhibitions, ArtSpace Gallery, Peterborough, Ont.
1993-98 Green Studio Gallery, ongoing gallery artist
2005 Peterborough Arts Umbrella “Then and Now” , two man exhibition with Rocky Green
2006 Peterborough Arts Umbrella “Interstitial States” , two man exhibition with Rocky Green

Other

Every once in a while, Rocky and I gather together some work and host a weekend show and sale at one of our studios, as well as maintaining our studios as ongoing salesrooms. As I mentioned earlier, there are some gaps due to my extended hospital tours of 1999-2000 and 2004-’05 .

I think that covers most of it, Rocky. I’ve got memory gaps, so if I’ve missed anything you can think of or gotten any dates wrong, my apologies. Also, feel free to delete the last line of the c.v. if you think it in bad taste. I still think I shoulda had tour tshirts made as a fundraiser.

…As I was trying to say before I was rudely interrupted by goofy technology, art school was where I first met a group of people who were concerned with something other than securing a career that was all about making money. I realise now that many of the folks I studied with came from backgrounds that meant they didn’t necessarily need to find a job that promised money, but I found that everybody I ran with, no matter what their background, was in it for the ride rather than the destination. And since I had no intention of obtaining a degree for any practical reason (I know, I know, art degrees aren’t a practical thing to have in the first place) my approach to school was to drop in for a year or two, model so I could sit in on classes in a few disciplines and in all four years of study levels, and see how each of the schools approached the same subject matter. It was actually a pretty good way to find out what was going on in various schools and served my purposes very well. It also left me with the perfect credentials for spending the next couple of decades working in every manner of job in the bar/restaurant industry to support my art habit. If you’ve read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, you’ll know why I felt quite at home in that environment and had a very good time for most of that time. Much like art schools, it’s a place where those who have chosen that life or have otherwise wound up working in the industry can find an accepting, loving group of people to work and play with, even if we are a bit twisted.
I’ve been out of that life for just under three years now. I had planned to leave the life of bars and paint full time only to have my timetable for withdrawal seriously messed up by a second go with Hodgkins disease, a rather unpleasant business, truth be told. Ironic for me to get the kind of cancer discovered by a painters’father, but life is like that sometimes. Everything is good again, I’ve been in remission for a bit better than two years now, and we’ve moved to the country in the last year where we have lovely views and I have the studio I’d been wanting for so long.
At this point, I’m quite enjoying the studio and what happens in it. I can now work on several paintings at once, mixing styles and approaches, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it takes me, especially now that there are no more obstacles to getting down to work.
As time unfolds and I get on with painting, I’ll post periodic notes about what the work is about, what’s going on in my head and I also plan to start a public journal as I begin to write about the effects the treatment and its’ aftermath now that I’ve had enough time for the experience to be less immediate and raw.


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About

I make what Marcel Duchamp derisively termed “retinal ” art to describe painting. What’s more is that I don’t actually use paint, but employ chalks instead, which kinda makes me a Luddite considering the vast array of visual media there are to choose from in the 21st century. I refer to my work as painting despite the fact that chalk is considered a graphic medium because my approach is concerned primarily with the process of pushing around colour. It’s just that instead of using wet pigments I prefer them to be dry and that this difference informs me in the physical process of laying down pigment in much the same way as the differences between oils and acrylics or either with watercolours but that otherwise it’s all painting.

Which also explains the differences in styles or systems I like to engage in my work, from abstraction to realism with various shades in between. I like to think that whatever else painting is about, and whatever style is being used, it’s ultimately about the act of painting. After that it can also contain whatever else you’re capable of including without losing sight of that simple idea.

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I also refer to myself as a painter rather than an artist, doing so because that distinction allows me to engage in the process of making paintings without the added pressure of MAKING ART , or, as I prefer, making intentional art. It’s up to others to decide whether or not what I do is art, and art is what happens when you’re too busy with the work to stop and think about it.

My approach is heavily influenced by my interest in the history of the medium, in both the standard western canon and its formalist perspective as well as the post modern melt down mish mash of the very same canon, and I like to include elements reflecting my own daily life because it refers back to the places and things that are ultimately the place where art both comes from and transcends.

And lately I’ve been thinking that art is basically an aesthetic approach/attempt at providing a concrete example of what scientists refer to as unified field theory , and that it’s kinda like what Raku potters do .

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