Jeffrey Batchelor (American painter, 1960)

Jeffrey Batchelor was born in North Carolina and studied at University of North Carolina at Greensboro, deferring in 1987 to pursue a career in theatrical scene painting.

Conceptually, his work ranges from straight realism to surrealism, and from rectangular canvases to shaped canvas panels.

Thanks to his extensive training in theatrical scenic construction. Often working with magnifiers, he delineate and define the myriad of reflections and refractions that exist within thick blown and cut crystal – realism for realism’s sake.

When realism becomes too constraining for him, he likes to reach intosurrealism, to take an idea or a concept and develop it with a magical flavor. This allows him to elicit the viewer’s thought processes and visually define a concept, idea, or feeling.

When a rectangle becomes constraining, he creates shaped panels that he paints in trompe-l’oiel fashion. This gives him endless possibilities for shape and depth illusions, as you will be able to observe here.