Their elderly faces gaze curiously, puzzled, perhaps somewhat bewildered even, at the canvas before them. These ladies have lived each of the past seven decades in this quiet horse town and witnessed inevitable cultural shifts that have transformed it in technology, mannerisms, architecture, and even in the art that currently stares back at them in this still gallery.
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From younger days, they remember when local art meant paintings of horses, oak trees and flowers. When a mural appeared on a wall near the downtown square, it was to them a bold statement. They saw the arguable birth of Ocala art when “Horse Fever” merged the local industry staple with the creative minds that had been itching for a sublime catalyst that would place them in a hot spotlight.
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They saw the pubertal stage of the Ocala arts community when a slight rebel flare sparked: the colorful nudes of Mel Fiorentino accepted as tasteful, Teddy Sykes’ dark work in the acrylics and even Ryan Neumann’s bizarre and often freakish depictions of subjects mundane and taboo alike, gleefully welcomed in a place not normally lauded for its progressive streak.
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But this — this makes no sense, this “art” that seems to speak no language, be it poetic or vulgar. Does this represent the next phase of Ocala’s artistic maturation? Scattered lines and shapes of varying colors that appear to hold the cohesion of silverware dropped on the floor — this is art? The ladies with their questions stand as Eliot’s Prufrock, the dichotomy of banality in the presence of something magnificent.
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Sometimes the new comes with the heavy baggage of misunderstanding and prejudice. Such is the dilemma faced with the latest artistic genre to storm the Ocala creative scene.
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Enter Heather Dawn Batchelor, the Indiana native who is betting on Ocala’s continued artistic maturation such that those dumbfounded looks will evolve into educated conversation among aficionados. What she brings is her brand of “abstract expressionism,” the most recent breed of artistry to test the boundaries of Ocala’s sensibilities.
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“I do abstract art,” Batchelor admits, nay, boasts. “It does give people a certain amount of leeway, freedom to come up with their own interpretation and their own reaction. That’s what I want.”
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What she sees and feels, Batchelor transcribes to the canvas the best way she knows. At a recent live painting event at the Appleton Museum, she drank in the moment and painted her views, thoughts, and emotions for all to see in real time. What some may have seen as random colors and strokes were actually well-thought and meticulously-placed — each brushstroke carrying with it an image or feeling.
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“The Appleton has that beautiful, creamy stone and we were in the courtyard, and it was open to the sky,” Batchelor remembers. “It was a beautiful evening, so you have these lines (in the painting) that are kind of pointing up to the sky. In art, vertical lines represent kind of pointing to God, spiritual growth — being alive.
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“The colors are pretty. There was a woman there and she had on a gorgeous green dress, and she walked by several times.”
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And Batchelor points to an odd placement of green, textured paint in the middle of her work. It’s a focal point of the painting because it became a focal point of the evening for her, and such curiosities and symbolisms construct the meaning of abstract expressionism.
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“It really is always about being in the physical realm, trying to get a glimpse of the spiritual. We can’t really see it, but we know it’s there… it affects us.”
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Historically, the world of abstract expressionism has been one that has reveled in its putative lack of subject matter and shockingly gestural techniques that quite often require no brushes or easels. Famed art critic Harold Rosenberg once wrote that in regard to abstract expressionism, “What was to go on the canvas was not a picture, but an event.”
And the mystery became intentional, the chaos actually part of the playbook.
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But Heather Dawn Batchelor sets the concept on its ear while clearly remaining within the boundaries of the genre, referring to herself as a “contemporary” expressionist. She is an admitted creature of routine, one who “likes order a lot” and claims that in her art “there is a structure and there is a point to it.”
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Her lovely face, with its Vogueish symmetry symbolic of beauty’s natural order, belies the seemingly chaotic images spewed forth onto the canvas. Her muse wells from the depths of her own soul and tends to masquerade the inner peace with what appears violent, to paint what is joyful though others may deem from it sadness. The juxtaposition of the person and the art rests solely within the mind of the beholder, perhaps ignorant of the real message laid before.
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Heather Dawn Batchelor introduces to the world what is referred to as ‘abstract’ yet is clearly defined in her own mind, body and spirit. What emerges from the soul and manifests itself onto that canvas is to her not at all abstract, but quite a transparent audit of her momentary inner passions.
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She points to her painting, “The Heavens Declare” which contains drip lines the result of no accident.
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“The paint, to me — especially the paint blobs, drips, splatters — represent our human touch on it. It’s not perfect.” Batchelor explains the importance of texture in her art as well as the other sub-strata pregnant with meanings the lay viewer likely fails to notice.
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“There is some planned randomness, happy accidents, ordered chaos. A lot of artists like the way their pallet looks, or the floor of their studio. Sometimes I will stare at the floor in my studio and get inspiration because certain colors have fallen together accidentally and I’ll think, ‘that looks really cool,’ so I’ll use that color palette.”
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The “happy accidents” create movement and texture while bright hues clash with dark shades to generate mood. And if one does not “get it” then one can surely notice that it at least “looks really cool.”
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And that may be a good enough start for an Ocalan’s artistic understanding, insofar as Batchelor is concerned. She is content that her style of art may today be thought of as simply pretty or edgy, but that tomorrow it will be appreciated by those whose taste buds have matured to adulthood and enjoy a greater knowledge than before.
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Batchelor does not merely hope Ocala’s acceptance of abstract expressionist art comes to fruition by happenstance, she is taking an active role in its education. She recently began teaching art classes at the Appleton where she now passes along her depth of knowledge about art history, technique, and terminology.
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“People are interested, and they want to be able to talk about (art) and know what’s going on,” Batchelor said. “The more tools and vocabulary you have, the greater your appreciation.”
All to make the average Ocalan not just a passerby of artwork, but a literate connoisseur of multiple mediums and genres. And those elderly women in the quiet art gallery, they will come and go, talking of… Heather Dawn Batchelor.