The Gallery will be closed 12 SEPTEMBER and reopen 10 OCTOBER. 

Jenni & Mervyn are heading off to Tibooburra to paint.

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We are saddened to acknowledge the passing of our gallery artist, friend and colleague PIERS BATEMEN. Piers has been in both Mervyn and my life forever. The Bateman family lived nearby when I was growing up in Eltham and came regularly to our Pastry shop. Piers was always the artist and when I began painting he made my first picture frames. He attended our local Eltham High School and contributed significantly to the artistic ethos of our community. Piers had the opportunity to work with and be mentored by  some of our country’s greatest artists’ such as Arthur Boyd.  We were excited for him when he had his first successful exhibitions and how proud he stood with those first achievements.  He went on to have a highly successful career as an artist in Australia and overseas. He had a passion for the sea and travelling extensively making a home where ever he was and in particular Spain and more recently China. He began teaching painting as a Professor for the Shanghai Institute of Visual Art.

Piers was an adventurer and great inspiration for just heading out there and doing it!  We saw the Australian Desert through Piers’s paintings, our local Bush and later the works from China more recently. He made his mark as a strong and unique Australian Landscape artist and did not ever ‘sell out’ to the fashion of the day with his art.

Piers has been showing at Eltham South Fine Art: Studios and Gallery since we commence and will be greatly missed for those regular chats and coffee around the table.

Jenni Mitchell

Painting – Summer Bush Piers Batemen

Piers Bateman wall plate from our Retro Eltham Show

Piers Bateman (1947 – 2015)

Born in Perth Piers moved to Eltham with his family in 1957 where he spent his formative years and attended the local Eltham high school. In 1966 Piers travelled to London where he studied art with Arthur Boyd and shared studios with Canadian and English painters. He held his first exhibition in Melbourne at the Munster Arms Gallery in 1968 age 20. From thereon he has travelled and exhibited regularly in Australia and overseas as well as setting up a studio in Alicante Spain in 1985. He has work held in many Private and Public collections nationally and internationally including Shanghai; where he currently holds a position at the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts.

From the Sydney Morning Herald

Former Liberal Andrew Peacock, has paid tribute to his “dear friend” landscape artist Piers Bateman, who died in a boating accident on Friday.

Mr Bateman, 67, was accompanied by a friend from New South Wales, who also perished in the incident.

In an email to Fairfax Media from his home in Texas, US, Mr Peacock said he was “very sad” to learn of the death.

“Piers was a dear friend and I greatly admire his work,” he said.

“Six of his works hung in the Australian Ambassador’s Residence in Washington,DC while I was there and I have five of them hanging in my Texas home today.”

Mr Peacock said so much of the Melbourne artist’s work evoked a distinctive Australian spirit.

“Piers was a fine artist and I will miss both him and his work,” he said.

Mr Bateman’s   work has been exhibited in art galleries in Australia and abroard, including the Red Hill Gallery in Brisbane, Eltham South Fine Art and the Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair.
His art also hangs on the walls of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Melbourne University and the conference room in the Australian Embassy in Washington.

In 2008, Mr Bateman told Brisbane Times art was a “seduction” to be enjoyed. Continue reading →