Bathers in a Landscape 

Curator: Here we have "Bathers in a Landscape" by Walter Battiss. It's an acrylic on canvas painting with a fantastic, free style. What strikes you most about this piece? Editor: Well, my first thought is that it is pure escapism! I feel this yearning to just leap into those vibrant pinks and greens, like diving into a Fauvist dream. It is a landscape that looks like a memory more than a real place, and those figures at the base look relaxed and intimate. Curator: That's a perceptive take. Battiss often employed a seemingly childlike style in his work, though underpinned by sophisticated visual and psychological explorations. Bathers are, of course, a recurring motif in art history and carry multiple symbolic connotations, such as the classical ideal of Arcadia and a return to nature. But Battiss subverts the more familiar and idealist bathers with a modern abstracted idiom, rendering those figures more ambiguous. Editor: Ambiguous is a perfect word. They could be Adam and Eve or any anonymous couple. But it's the texture, almost crusty, and those juicy colors which call out. Is it escapism, though, if there's still a kind of edginess there? Perhaps the artist is showing a sense of longing rather than arrival. The composition is really interesting and vibrant with contrasting layers of brushwork. The painting seems divided between abstraction and figuration, but never resolves itself, making it almost more psychological than documentary. Curator: Precisely, and that's what holds our attention. Battiss, immersed in primal art and San rock paintings, frequently infused his work with abstracted patterns and simplified human forms. One could propose these "Bathers" don't just occupy a physical landscape, but also a mental landscape—one echoing the ancient mythologies, and at the same time, grappling with contemporary emotion. Note the arrangement of colors; does it remind you of anything else? Editor: There's a raw immediacy that recalls an unfinished expressionistic painting that both challenges and entices with equal measure. I find it both uplifting and thought provoking to discover the image within it, while allowing oneself to get lost within the bold patterns and color scheme. Curator: Yes, an unresolved experience, but one brimming with visual richness and depth of meaning. Editor: Well, I'm already picturing myself escaping there now, off to find some rocks by the riverside and do nothing all afternoon.