A young man dressed in a yellow striped shirt and jean shorts, is sitting on a chair, his frustrated face is setting the tone as he struggles with his camera. This painting appears to be about being stuck in a room, his back is turned away from the computer, a number 4 t-shirt is on the back of his chair, cider bottles are attached to his plant and a rubbish bag is sitting by the wall. The design of the picture is concerning, the boldly painted figure becomes part of the scene.
A line of people are dancing by a pond with a city in the distance below a magnificent Manna Tree on a hill. The sky and the plants all become one, the pixies are standing by a mushroom and the sky has a huge face in the clouds. The city adds a polluted element to the picture, toxins are present alongside the fantastic landscape of Manna. Batty stayed in his room a lot when he was younger, playing and observing computer games that would later explain the fantasy behind his paintings.
Through an allotment opens a valley of urbanization, the factory and its chimney looming in the distance. The scene is peppered with intricate details of plants, cats, foxes and wheel barrows. Although it is of a real place, the scene is layered into the distance. In the foreground a man is passed out on the floor holding a bottle of wine to his lips.
Worked up business men, mad profile pictures and retro computers make up this surreal work scene. The men at work look under pressure, swept away by a sea of information overload. The techno style and greyish colour scheme reinforce the works basic order. The yellow skull in the middle of the image represents working yourself to death.
An air of chaos dominates this sideways view of a man sitting at his computer. Only the snowy mountains painted in bright colours balance out the room’s length of landscape. Richard was a real computer game geek when he was younger, an artist in the model of Sonic the hedge-hog and super Mario.
The monsoon river is the focal part of the scene, it becomes a time line from the dinosaur bones to the dark volcano exploding a dragon. Batty focusses on symbolism combined with bold abstract colours to tell the Tale of myth fantasy and science. The result is meticulous and sometimes dreamy, the landscapes depth of surrealism makes you wonder about reality.
Exploding out the street scene on the right is King Kong, he’s just seen Godzilla running over the hills on the left. The temple in the middle of the triptych symbolizes an institution, the two houses on the left make up less road space than the higher built tower block on the right. Batty attempts to unite the architectures all along one road, space is a measurement for chaos and the naively painted characters make the picture easier to digest considering its social geography.
A simple scene presents itself: a teenage girl sits in a funky surreal library, a freaked mouse on her chair. The painting is a bit weird, one wonders if Richard used red lip stick to paint the chair and nail varnish for the book shelves. The girl looks knowingly puzzled, her legs are crossed and her shoes are off, perhaps the library in the distance represents her aspirations to be a librarian, a dream idea after a night out.
A flurry of funky colours dominates this dazzling painting of a street scene with a man stopping tired, wondering what happened to his youth. The entire surface is covered with contrasting colours, the sky merges with the road and the bricks become a disco dance floor. Richard has used colour as a means of expression to capture the good times, rather than concentrating on grey realities.
An electric age of science and surrealism is discovered in this chaotic painting. It tells the story of a scientist who searched far and wide for the answers about Life, and finally found the cats head in a glass of water quite disturbing. The Scientist is in the centre of the picture and appears to glow blue and blown up in the head, his works affected so many people, one man is seen looking into a bin, a woman is doing an erotic dance on a magic carpet, while another is going crossed eyed as a lady bug crawls over a leaf.
Art Waffle 