lan:

Popular wildlife painter takes
on Canadian art establishment

Y INTERVIEW with
Robert Bateman
almost didn’t hap-

Canada’s foremost wildlife '
painter was also booked to visit an
Abbotsford high school, which
had, apparently, decided to name a

itself after Bateman.
That's as good as any indicator Evelyn Jacob

a5 to just how illustrious the artist. == SPOTLIGHT FEATURE
has become. ‘

How many other Canadian ar- Bateman has placed himself
tists have claimed such titles? How —_ against a 600-year-old Sitka spruce
many of these were alive when and is staring at a machine in a
they claimed them? graveyard of dead trees.

At 63, Robert Bateman is “This sitka spruce was 100
arguably North America’s most years old when Christopher Col-
popular and probably wealthiest umbus arrived,’’ he says, motion-
wildlife artist. His reproductions ing to his painting. “Where is it
alone have earned him millions. now? In two-hy-fours? Junk mail?

His current show at the Van- “The plight of the logging in-
couver Museum drew the largest dustry is a microcosm for the
crowd on an opening night in plight of Western civilization at the
museum history — 700 people end of the 20th century. Machines
crammed into every available inch - are replacing people and we’re
of reception space to catch a
glimpse of the artist.

And yet Bateman is not consid-
ered a major modern painter in
the minds of Canada’s art com-
munity, which has never taken
him seriously despite his public
popularity. Or perhaps even

ecause of it. ;

The Vancouver Museum agreed
ta show his work partly because
the Vancouver Art Gallery refuses
to, according to the museum's
Venetia Nielsen, .

“We're showing his work
because the Vancouver Art Gallery
won't,”’ says Nielsen. ‘“Why?

Because they don’t think he’s an
artist.”

Bateman, who looks an amaz-
ingly young 63, is obviously rank!-
ed with what he terms the snab-
bishness of the art community.

“In the capital ‘A’ art world,
someone somehow got this fetish
that started the idea of the artist as
rebel. You have to do stuff that
breaks through all the time...

_ “It's become so totally futile,”
he laments. ‘If one becomes
popular — especially in Canada —
it automatically eliminates you. If
you're famous, you're trash.’

As to the criticism that manufac-
turing reproductions is somehow
deceiving the public, Bateman
simply waves it off.

“Some people think I'm the
devil incarnate for making
reproductions. They claim they’re
confusing. But the public knows
very well that they’re getting a
reproduction of an original.”

Included in his current exhibit
are two new acrylics on canvas.

One, called Self-Portrait with
Ancient Sitka Spruce and Big
Machine, reflects Bateman’s con-
cern with unemployment and the
extinction of biodiversity.

ONE OF CANADA’S LARGEST

Selection of loose and mounted emeralds

_AT DIRECT IMPORT PRICES

Julie Karlsen
I would like to take this
opportunity to invite all. my'
friends and clients to call or
visit me at my new location.
ly SHEAR Be | Importers of gemstones/
S WEST HAIR STUDIO Manufacturers of fine jewellery
\ 926-0068 Capilano Mall, North Vancouver
Village Square . a oe
1425 Marine Drive,'West Van