Joel Batz: The Art Of Wonder

Most days, you’ll find Joel Batz sitting in his studio, brush in hand, working on one of his latest paintings. Having encountered his deeply personal work adorning the walls of many friends’ homes in Antigua, I found myself wondering why he had not yet been featured on the pages of Qué Pasa.

I could write a feature about his life story just as easily as I could about his work, but in many ways, the two are one and the same.

The Life of Joel Batz

Let’s start with the life of Joel Batz. Born in Quetzaltenango in the 1970s, he came from humble beginnings. As a child, he loved making things with his hands, and at the age of only six, he enrolled in a sculpture and painting after-school programme at his local church, where his innate talent was first nourished. Leaving school at only fourteen, he joined his half-brother in Mexico City, working as a helper in his handicraft store while studying at an art academy. Joel was acutely aware that life there was vastly different from back home, where there was no electricity, no oven, and no milk. “Now I’m rich. I now know how ‘poor’ I was,” he reflects.

By the age of seventeen, Joel made the treacherous journey to the United States to seek the “American Dream”. He says that learning is in his DNA; he took an ESL course while selling his sculptures on Venice Beach, eventually gaining acceptance to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Then, in 2010, he made the decision to return to Guatemala. His health was failing, and he found he couldn’t afford the fresh organic fruit and vegetables he needed. Having grown up eating produce naturally harvested from the land, he had an epiphany: in Guatemala, his life was “rich”. In 2024, he opened Casa Para Las Artes here in Antigua, where his work is now on display. His paintings have featured in numerous exhibitions nationally, as well as across the United States and Europe.

When the artist was young, he and his brothers would spend every October lovingly building a house from scrap materials amongst the branches of a small manzanilla tree. A couple of months later, they would take it down to allow the tree to flourish. Many of his paintings feature these structures. “As we grow older, we lose our sense of wonder,” Joel says. “When I put my little houses there, it is a reminder to contain yourself in life and see from a different perspective—through the eyes of wonder, the eyes of a child. You might encounter some beauty there, perhaps in the simplicity of life.”

The Art of Joel Batz

The influence of magical realism runs through Joel’s work. Take the ubiquitous ladder: “The path of life—the risks and decisions we make that lead us to certain points or life experiences. To me, magical realism represents our philosophy; the story behind the whimsical elements. It is about taking surroundings from life and placing them in the context of a magical story.”

Coffee branches heavy with ripe red beans also feature prominently in his work, as coffee has been at the heart of Guatemala for centuries—from the workers making their living to the global appreciation of the Guatemalan bean.

Another significant strand of his work is Between the Ocean and Sky. Here, Joel connects two dimensions of the state of mind: digging deep into one’s thoughts or reaching high where the imagination knows no boundaries. He considers sharks and whales to represent the “sensibility of humanity.” As he puts it: “They are huge animals, the most noble and humble. And look at us. We are so tiny, yet often so full of envy.”

Today, Joel Batz continues to paint with the same sense of curiosity and reverence that has shaped his life and work. At Casa Para Las Artes, his studio and gallery in Antigua, visitors are not only able to view his paintings, but to step into the world that inspires them. In his hands, memory, myth and everyday life become something quietly luminous, reminding us that wonder is not something we outgrow, but something we can choose to keep alive.

You can find Casa Para Las Artes at:

4a Calle Oriente #31, Antigua Guatemala
Tel: 7832-8125 / 4421-7956
Website

Joel Batz: The Art Of Wonder