Life and Art. The Environment and Tree-Logging? Robert Bateman Speaks for the Faculty of Forestry's 100-Year Anniversary

By Isa Cunanan

Canadian wildlife artist and environmentalist Robert Bateman is in favour of loggers, logging, and logging communities. He just hates the industry.

"It is my fervent hope for foresters, not accountants, to run forests," said the environmental figure in a public lecture at the University of Toronto’s Isabel Bader Theatre. Bateman associates industrial logging with the industrialization of farming and fishery—practices that he believes make up the three greatest dangers to the environment. A veteran member of several green organizations and last June’s $3 million-dollar contributor to Amnesty International, Toronto-born Bateman was an activist years before selling-out his first wildlife exhibit in 1975.

Bateman visited the Theatre on September 4th as a guest speaker at the Faculty of Forestry’s 100th anniversary, which aimed to focus celebrations on understanding forests beyond their commercial potential. The final speaker of a two-part lecture series that also featured Canadian author and environmentalist Margaret Atwood, Bateman has benefited conservation communities over the decades by communicating wildlife and ecological crisis through art—and donating some of his lucrative works. Today, the iconic 77-year-old continues his craft close to home in his British Columbia studio. His original paintings largely reside in western art museums and organized exhibitions, but with prints ordered by the thousands online, Bateman’s artwork has crossed constraints of institution and privilege to also become a popular fixture in households.

Bateman’s realistic paintings may have earned mass-admiration for their photographic quality, but the artist places this style in context of earlier ventures with impressionism and cubism to remind supporters that realism is just a fragment of his message.

"It’s like saying, ‘I like your sweater, it has a lot of stitches in it’," quipped the painter. In the past, Bateman has formally stated that his work holds "no real trend stylistically," claiming that "there is no other style that suits wildlife painting other than realism."

With active organizational involvement to complement a growing roster of accessible, ecological artwork, his dual-career as a conservationist shows promise.

Bateman’s early-nineties "Driftnet" painting gripped Isabel Bader Theatre in quiet observation, with a blue-hued overhead slide depicting an albatross and dolphin snared on a canvass webbed with genuine netting. The display cried foul to the drifting "walls of death" that were commonplace to commercial Pacific-fishing in the 1980’s—at their peak, driftnets snared accidental "bycatch" that totalled twenty percent of intended commercial catch. This method of non-discriminatory netting has since been abandoned by the majority of its users, but in an industry as large as fishery, even minimal use is cause for concern. Through his work, Bateman communicates exactly what he revealed to the students and professionals in Isabel Bader Theatre: "I hope to draw attention to what Canadians are losing."

Although Bateman speaks strongly for his causes, the environmentalist maintains he has come across zero political resistance, joking that "no one takes artists seriously." When encouraged to elaborate on the extent of his interest in politics, Bateman promptly tossed the idea of pursuing a future as a political figure, saying simply: "I’d hate it. I’d rather snipe."

Bateman did explain his nightmare of the future, where he predicts "a world that views nature, science, and family values as data on the screens." Pausing to settle on one portrait in his slideshow presentation—a stark painting of a sitting-ostrich with her neck stretched tall—Bateman reminded the audience of the myth that the birds bury their heads within the ground when danger arrives, and the reality that this response is most reminiscent of our own character.
"This is the greatest threat to the environment," stated Bateman. "When danger comes, we don’t want to hear about it."

Bateman has published three books that he describes as stories of life and art, ranging from pages of political discourse to wildlife picture books for children.

In appreciation of his eco-sensitive views, the Faculty of Forestry presented Robert Bateman with a gift at the end of the night: a tree, to be planted in his honour on the St. George campus.

"Oh, good," responded the naturalist.

"What species?"