Laurie Batter
Laurie Batter’s artistic journey began in New Haven and Woodbridge, Connecticut, where creativity was valued and encouraged from an early age. As a child, she experimented with unconventional materials—painting with kitchen spices like cloves and bay leaves—and at nine, joined a local art workshop that brought together artists of all ages. Her father sculpted, her mother painted, and her great aunts were also artists. Frequent visits to Yale-affiliated museums and annual trips to New York City galleries laid a foundation of deep appreciation for art.
Though she doubted her talent and chose not to attend art school, Batter pursued a BA in Art History at Case Western Reserve University in partnership with the Cleveland Museum of Art. She studied design, color theory, enameling, and took summer courses in ceramics and metalsmithing at the Cleveland Institute of Art. This academic immersion gave her a grounding in both the history and practice of art.
For four decades, Batter built a career in PR and marketing with her firm, BatterUp! Productions. During the pandemic, she returned to her own art practice, taking Zoom classes and revisiting portraiture, figure work, watercolor, and acrylics. In 2024, she completed Nicholas Wilton’s Art2Life Creative Visioning Program, which emphasized play and intuition—transforming how she approached painting.
Batter thrives on experimentation, exploring watercolor, oil, acrylic, gouache, charcoal, pastel, collage, oil sticks, and more. Recurring themes in her work include the human condition—emotional interiors, resilience, connection, and disconnection. Figurative elements often emerge intuitively through layers of paint and collage.
She cites Richard Diebenkorn, Emily Mason, Wolf Kahn, and Edward Hopper as key influences, alongside her background in art history, which instilled a deep respect for tradition while encouraging personal interpretation.
Her creative process begins each morning with a swim at 6 a.m.—a forty-year habit that grounds her. In the studio, she journals in a sketchbook, sketches ideas, and uses inspiration boards filled with colors, textures, and references. Batter works intuitively, often starting with spontaneous gestures or layering, letting intuition and passion guide the story of the piece.
Batter’s reflections are deeply tied to humanity and the fragile spaces people inhabit. She hopes her work resonates with viewers, sparking recognition, introspection, or comfort. “My art is a way for me to share—and at times bare—my soul,” she explains. Often, viewers bring their own life stories into the work, completing the dialogue she begins on canvas.
Currently, Batter is working on a series titled Echoes in Black Boots, which explores emotional disconnection in relationships—the psychological tension between closeness and withdrawal.
For her, success is rooted in authenticity: “If I create something I love, I trust that others will feel that too.” Looking ahead, she dreams of a solo museum show that would bring together the stories that matter most to her.
Her advice to emerging artists is simple but hard-won: create from your true north. Push aside limiting beliefs, give yourself space to play, and remember—it’s never too late to begin, or to begin again.
