When a teacher decides to dedicate his life as an artist it doesn't make him forget his past or become anything less than what traditional artists are. If you can consider there are people out there that care about their national wildlife enough to put it in on canvas why should that be considered too common to be worthy of attention? Well to many of the old guard in the art world, or the priesthood as Bateman has mentioned, it still is unworthy because it is not something original as an impressionist painting would be.
Still, the nature artist Bateman is proving to the world that he is getting large audiences and viewing public wherever he has his expositions. His paintings are of animals that we would see stuffed at the Smithsonian but it is his composition, which has to be considered too besides his popularity and years of dedication at capturing species that have close to disappeared. It takes time for people to change their view of what art is and if I see art in the form of one color on a canvas, don't tell me that the rendition of a rare specie caught on canvas is any less artistic.
Bateman now has a project going on which would reintroduce nature to children who live especially in urban settings and have little or no access to nature trails. He started out years ago by drawing the birds in the ravine beyond his back property. He went into teaching but was always the artist and eventually decided to hold expositions and speak out about how children are being too influenced by electronics.
Suffice it to say that much of the causes of disorders that afflict people, who live for their computerized video games or cannot concentrate on learning new material, are made better when they are more exposed to nature. Bateman's new project has been set up with getting those students aware of their ties to nature.
