Meet Batia Lowenberg | Painter, Public Artist, Coach, & Enthusiastic Creator & Participant of Live Art Events

We had the good fortune of connecting with Batia Lowenberg and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Batia, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I truly love this question. Artists take so many macro- and micro-risks in both their lives and their art on a minute-by-minute and daily basis and perhaps the public does not realize this. So many of the risks that we take are invisible unless you look closely and listen deeply to artists’ stories. Firstly, it is a risk actually realizing, admitting, and defining and identifying yourself as an artist. For many, it starts at a young age, for others, once they are older. I also find that one doesn’t always choose to be an artist, the artist self calls you into being, Higher Power somehow chooses you. So noticing and acknowledging that you are an artist is the first risk. Sometimes it is even, “Oh, I’m an artist, that explains everything, now what do I do”. Artists are kind of like this strange “minority”, this “other” in our society, we are loved, celebrated, yet judged harshly and not always nurtured and supported. WE DIFFERENT!!! So that once we admit that we are artists, we may realize, secondly, ooh, that’s different — we not like those other type A suburban people, our goals are different, our dress may be different, our hours are different, we are better at some things and worse at other things, things that seem ordinary and everyday to other people can be very hard for us to do and things that we can do extraordinarily, others envy and marvel at. Thirdly, artists then need to make that decision and take that risk, is it worth it being an artist, being different and how am I going to do this–how will I organize my life, income, and art-making? how will I function in a world that ignores most artists, doesnt always value the creative life, how am I going to survive, mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, aesthetically, and spiritually? Many of us try many, many different combinations of things to see what fits us personally, what supports our flourishing, what blocks it….We also take risks in relationships….Many of us spend inordinate time alone, it could be in the artmaking practice itself, it could be in meditating and planning our artmaking, it could be to be alone to process our day, our interactions, are thought processes and the time needed to just calm down. My joke during the pandemic is finally, finally, the world is functioning at the slower rhythm I am comfortable at…WE DIFFERENT!!! Related to the above, fourthly, we may risk not having any money, not having any relationships, even a steady place to live or work…and we may go through “feast or famine” seasons in our lives while we are trying, just surviving, from our art, or teaching full- or part-time, or a B job, or starting a related business, or freelancing, etc….Perhaps our middle name is “RISK”! Some risks we choose, some we are forced into, and others we are powerless over. Lastly, within our artmaking practice, itself, are infinite amounts of risks, from trying a new medium, to finding our “voice”, to deciding which color to place next to the last one, to painting over half your painting and it becomes amazing, to actually hating what you produced at the end of the day, leaving the studio frustrated and broken-hearted, to coming back the next day and reaching the mountain top with ecstatic pleasure at what we created from our very own, humble hands and hearts. Some artists approach their creating in an intuitive, process-oriented dialogue with their materials and so we are making decisions and taking risks in milli-seconds, maybe a dozen or so actions a minute, as we speak and listen to our canvas, the clay, the musical instrument…In closing, I would like to say being an artist is a very quiet, almost invisible heroic act….It is a way of life full of risks, small and large so let’s give the artists in our lives “street cred” for that and as artists, to give ourselves our own favorite hero award!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

Urban~Tropical~Cosmic! My large abstract paintings pop with oversized surprise and delight where the human-made and the organic, the comic and the poignant, the street and the spirit are held together in bold color bursts of perfectly precarious paradoxical balance. One colleague called my work “a party on canvas”! Another said it is full of hope and a tonic for these times. The 6-foot paintings evoke experiences of the almost familiar with sprinkles of whimsy and mystery. Who can decode what is going on….?!!!

My sensibility and practice comes from several varied sources—from my living and working in the 80’s and 90’s in the downtown NYC art scene where street art and feminist art were in your face and transforming narratives. I was curating shows, doing window installations filled with social commentary, poetry, and recycled objects; painting, and doing performance art here and there in galleries, clubs, and feminist conferences.. I was also running the Artists Hotline and later coaching artists through the Artists Career Planning Service. In 1996 I moved to fabulous Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean coast and was thrown into war and peace both biblical and in the present where I painted, taught English, and ministered to sex-trafficked women and Sudanese refugees.

In 2015 I moved back to the States to live near my feisty, beautiful, forever young mom in South Florida. I have taken in the local culture(s) along with the rhythms of nature and environmental challenges into my work in a mashup mix of my own personal history and the zeitgeist of each of the above places. I am an optimist and my Higher Power is my tower of strength who helps me to keep going in the face of vast existential and deeply vulnerable daily challenges. In the end you just got to laugh about it all. To live laughing and if you have to die, to die laughing!

I received the Dina Baker Grant ($10,000) from the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County and was selected for the City of West Palm Beach’s Commons Project Grant ($6,000). I am an artist-in residence at Zero Empty Spaces, Boca Raton, and am represented by Big Art Now in West Palm Beach. I am currently scheduled for a solo show at Bailey Contemporary Arts (BaCA) in Pompano Beach for March-May 2023 curated by Juliana Forero and hope to appear in more shows in this coming year. My work is in public and private collections in Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong, Israel, and the U.S. I am also available for commissions and live art events.

Come visit my studio, would love to show you my current work, get your feedback, and also share other artist colleagues’ work with you!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
In Palm Beach County, I would hit the museums with friends and family who are visiting, The Boca Museum, the Cornell Museum, and of course, the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach.

I would take them to friends’ art studios and go out to eat at some of my favorite places, Bradley’s on the in Intracoastal in West Palm, Copperfish and Farmer’s Table, also in Boca.

I also love Burt Aaronson South Regional Park in West Boca, the Daggerwing Nature Center there with live animals and reptiles, and the rebuilt boardwalk.

Prohibition burgers at Tap 42 are excellent and the staff making guacamole at your table at Roco’s Tacos is always a treat. Boca Center is home to several of these great restaurants and our Zero Empty Spaces Studio is right around the corner.

The beach and boardwalk in Deerfield Beach is also very cool and expansive and relaxing.

Public art also abounds in the region. Murals and sculpture in West Palm Beach, The tunnels and walls at the Boca waterfront parks are painted with murals and designs by artists I know.

The monthly artwalks in Delray, F.A.T Village, and re-opening in Boynton Arts District are always fun.

The Arts Warehouse always shows edgy, interesting artwork in Delray Beach and the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County in Lake Worth has shows and events that are worth keeping an eye on. Pompano Beach is now popping with several cultural venues in the downtown area from the Bailey to the Convention Center to the Ali Cultural Center shows great art and sponsors music performances and creative classes.

Boynton’s new Town Hall Center downtown area is worth checking out and the interior of their new City Hall has great art worked into the interior with many places to just hang out and also visit the library upstairs. They have a new gallery across the street, a Kinetic Sculpture extravaganza every two years or so.

Lake Worth is still a great funky town with an art movie theater and the annual Chalk Art Festival along with Mtn Space Gallery and the Cultural Council.

And, of course, make it a point to stop by Big Art Now, the gallery that reps me, across the street from the hip Grandview Market in the Arts & Entertainment District of West Palm Beach near the railroad tracks and the Norton!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My parents, Al & Ellie Lowenberg; my uncle, Len Berzofsky, my sister and brother-in-law, Zigi Lowenberg & Raymond Nat Turner who are amazing jazz poets and founders of UpSurge!; Betsy Damon who founded the Feminist Art Studio at Cornell in 1972; Meredith Monk who I admired so much and got to work with a little bit, all artists throughout history, all women artists throughout history who have persevered; musicians who went to art school from John & Paul to David Byrne of the Talking Heads; also Patti Smith, poet/girl rock star/artist advocate; Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke; Gospel Music; worship leaders; RC Artist Support Groups, A.R.T.S Anonymous; all my artist and art appreciating friends, old and new, including Avi Schwartz; my current gallery dealer who got me working big–David McClure of Big Art Now; my art bud, Todd Lim, who has helped scrape me off the floor and speaks encouragement and “attagirls” at me; my studiomates at Zero Empty Spaces-Boca and ZES Founders, Andrew Martineau & Evan Snow, Visionaires Extraordinaire; my friends in Israel, my pastors, old and new including Pastors Paul & Shila Hungerford and Avi & Chaya Mizrachi, my Jewish Heritage, Israel, Jesus, and my Higher Power–Avinu Malkeinu, My G-d, Yeshua, My Lord and Savior & the Amazing Holy Spirit who partners with me as a constant companion in my studio and in my life. And love to all my other friends, supporters, collectors, clients, and students!!!!!

Website: www.batialowenberg.com

Instagram: instagram.com/batialowenberg/

Other: I can be reached directly at batiaartist@gmail.com and welcome your comments and inquiries. Studio visits are by appointment and I welcome you to contact me and come by!

Image Credits
Denis Janis Marianela Perez Mary Tiffany