My Wildlife Art Hero... Robert Bateman

 My "Wildlife Art Hero" is a Canadian Painter named Robert Bateman.  

Robert Bateman is probably the biggest name in Wildlife Art in North America and one of the most influential, too. His style is at first sight typical of "realism" but there is much more to it than that. He paints. He does not 'draw' illustrations typical of European wildlife art.

Bateman lists among his influences the Group of Seven (artists) of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Abstract Expressionism also has a big influence across North America. When you look at a Bateman composition, you do not at first see the historical art influences. Instead, Bateman cleverly finds aspects of nature which reflect the same ideas from Art. Bateman is perhaps the only artist to use composition is such a clever way. No one else I can think of works in that way: 

To take the concept of Abstraction in Art but to restore it to the natural world as if completely real and entirely natural to find it out there in the environment all along.

Positive and Negative shapes are explored in the silhouettes of trees, the darkness of deep water in contrast against the snow bank, etc., etc. The balance of composition is used to great effect to show the elusiveness of nature, too. It is not out there in full view. It skulks in the shadows and may not present itself. 

Here is an example of a photograph I took in 2012 of a water vole. Can you see it?

The best book on the work of Robert Bateman and his approach to composition is still for me the first; "The Art Of Robert Bateman" with text by Ramsay Derry and an introduction by Roger Tory Peterson. It was published in 1981 by Swan Hill Press. 

I studied the compositions of Robert Bateman for a GCSE in Critical Studies In Art & Design in 1995.