Today we’d like to introduce you to David Batterman.
Hi David, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’ve always pursued a variety of creative outputs, whether it be art, music, writing, or multimedia work, and I think a lot of this stems from my job at the Mark Smith Planetarium when I was growing up in Macon. In those pre-digital days, shows were put together by hand, through slide projectors, reel-to-reel tape, building custom effect projectors and videotape. It was a crucible of learning many different techniques and technologies: operating copy cameras, wiring electronics, analog recording, primitive video editing…the list goes on. This training in being able to pivot to different creative avenues had a huge influence in reinforcing my urge to explore a diversity of expression. In the last four years, I’ve written and released two albums, published a ten year retrospective of my collage work, been a staff writer for Record Plug magazine, and been a featured photographer in the Colors of Atlanta documentary series. All of these have been amazing experiences, but most recently I’ve been refocusing on my visual art practice, combining collage, painting and drawing, and re-embracing photography. I am finding that sense of focus to be a calm place in a world that seems chaotically wrong at times.
I got my undergraduate degree in photography from Georgia State and worked in the industry for a few years in multiple roles, from running a commercial mass printing darkroom to shoot assisting and digital asset management. After that, I ended up getting into the graphic design industry, working for 15 years in both corporate and boutique agency settings. In 2013, I was burned out and ready for a more meaningful change, so I went back to grad school and got my M.A.Ed. in Art Education, and now have been a proud Fulton County teacher for eleven years, teaching Photography, Graphic Design, Drawing and Painting. Teaching has been rewarding on so many levels, but in my personal practice, it has reinforced my skills and inspired me even more to embrace different media.
In addition to my fine art photography, I have also worked for the last twenty years with artists, galleries, and cultural institutions to visually document the Atlanta arts scene. The power of images to convey installations, exhibitions and individual artworks is vital in an era where so much of our consumption of images is rooted in manipulation and trickery. Hopefully it reminds people to go and experience real, experiential and communicative art in person. Documenting these artists and their work has been a privilege and honor.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The artistic process is full of challenges, but as I always tell my students, things that are worth doing are hard. For a long time I struggled with the idea that I needed to specialize in one area, and that by exploring different media or types of art I was not perfecting my craft in any of them. However, as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that most of that pressure comes from external sources based in commodification and value within business-oriented structures. I am privileged to have a steady day job, so it’s become easier to concentrate on art as the volition of making and speaking to larger issues, and not worry as much about the “will this sell” aspects. Balancing all these interests with being a father and husband could probably be harder, but I’m lucky to have a very talented artist as a wife and a budding creative genius in our daughter, so it all meshes pretty well in the end.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Most of my work deals with themes of commercialism, militarism, as well as larger issues of national and materialistic identity. Primarily my output has been based in collage, photography and multi-media, but as I mentioned earlier, I’m incorporating more drawing and painting in the last few years. I have a sizable collection of vintage magazines and publications, ranging from Life and Good Housekeeping, to automotive trade magazines from the early 1950’s, and even a set of 1960’s NASA blueprints for a proposed missile test site in Mississippi. I love the idea that, as William S. Burroughs once said, “when you cut into the present, the future leaks out.” In a time where so much of our human experience is fragmented by the distortions of marketing, social, and mass media, the act of re-contextualizing these vintage materials and making them into static, fixed works feels like decoding a past secret with new meaning. I take the same approach in my video work, utilizing public domain footage of old DOD training films, newsreels, documentaries and the like, remixed and layered in different transparencies, speeds and directions.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I love Atlanta for its ability to incubate a thriving arts scene, one filled with musicians, filmmakers and artists doing amazing things, innovating and developing new ideas. The diversity of the metro area is fantastic as well, we truly have an international flair with large immigrant communities and cultures from around the globe. What is disappointing is seeing how much of the crusty, authentic soul of the city is being swallowed by development and the kinds of affordability issues that plague most big cities. If you live somewhere for any significant amount of time I suppose this is inevitable, but the blows seem to be a little harder and more often recently. However, that aforementioned arts scene always seems to find a way to reinvent itself in neglected places and breathe new life into them.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.davidwbatterman.com
- Instagram: @davidwbatterman
Image Credits
All images David W Batterman
