ABOUT ME

I'm Justin Bateman - the face behind 2 Look Alive Wildlife Art. Around the age of 18 (back in 1990), I started becoming interested in taxidermy and initially taught myself from a book, before finding a museum taxidermist who eventually let me through his door.

He was kind enough to take me under his wing (so to speak) and show me the trade, and I began trading as a taxidermist from that point on.

Taxidermy is a constantly evolving trade with new materials and innovations coming along all the time, so I never stop up-skilling in my quest to produce the best quality mounts. Over the years I have attended seminars and conferences and training events.

In 2010, I moved to New Zealand and joined the NZ taxidermy association. In this new country, the choices of work for a taxidermist were big game or birds and fish. I chose big game and set about mastering that sector.

Through the association, I gained even more skills and met more taxidermists committed to constantly improving the standard of the trade. Also, I made some new lifelong friendships with world champion taxidermists, who kindly allowed me into their studios and showed me their techniques. They also convinced me to start a new journey... competition taxidermy.

In 2018, I returned to the UK and set up my current taxidermy studio. However, in 2019, I entered the NZ taxidermy competition and took over a wall pedestal red fox mount. I was delighted to win 2nd place in my division in game heads and even more delighted to win best in show small mammal with it....and so my competitive career began.

As both the volume and the size of animals grew over the last few years, I had to move into a larger studio. Now with a larger studio I can not only accommodate my order list, but start offering tuition to those who are interested as I realise just how hard it is in UK to get a taxidermist to show you.