ABOUT THE ARTIST

Art for Eric Batliner is an exploration of self, an expression of thoughts and emotions, a cataloging of important moments, and a playful abandonment of such seriousness all at once.
He is prolific in his creation of imagery which allows him to follow all of his interests. Most commonly vacillating between the “sacred” and the “insane”, Eric continues to refine the concepts that inspire his work. The “sacred” being the things in this world that bring about pleasure and happiness such as music, dancing, and love. The insane being the negative control oriented issues that arise in our world, those of politics and those of human depravity.
The artist hopes to bring about change through the highlighting of the sacred and the discussions raised by the images of the insane.

Short Biography.
Eric Batliner was born and raised on the foothills west of Denver. He attended the University of Colorado and earned a double emphasis BFA studio art degree in oil painting and sculpture along with a minor is Japanese. Having his first group show in Denver's Edge gallery during his junior year gave the young artist a confidence boost. One that helped propel him towards new forms of expression. Eric began to explore and create murals and found new heights in art making through “installations”, a form of art in which the entire room becomes the art and the viewer explores the created environment. His thesis piece was an epic undertaking involving oil paintings, spray painted signs, two school desks(one pink on blue) and the construction of a 12 foot cube in which two file cabinets welded back to back were swung back and forth by an industrial motor. The idea, which was funded by a large UROP grant titled “The Internal Struggle Due to External Institutions” manifested itself into a crashing banging monster of the modern psyche and caught the attention of the local news papers.

Post graduation Mr. Batliner had to struggle with the new size of his barely affordable studio in a rundown garage on 20th st. This lack of space led the artist to focus purely on oil painting but led to new aesthetics and greater technique in the field. When he was offered a space in the Eldorado Art Center in Eldorado Springs he found a new light filled studio in which to grow. More importantly he shared it with Julie Maren, an established boulder artist whose paintings graced many galleries and whose sculptures are the posts of the bridge across the rock garden on pearl street. She showed the way towards financial stability as an artist.

Dreaming of exploring the world he applied to the Jet program, a government funded English teaching program in Japan, but had to defer when his knee was pushed sideways during a soccer match. After three surgeries and four years he found himself exuberantly bouncing on a North West airliner on its way to tokyo. Where he lived learned and explored for the next three years. After a final show in the Tokyo big site for Design Festa 25 he prepared to come home to boulder.

Eric returned to the Eldorado Art Center in Sept. 2007 and began creating with new enthusiasm. He currently facilitates a weekly life drawing class at the center and does live painting at the B-Side lounge every wednesday evening for “Hello Wednesdays.”