Battiss’s erotic works often depict nude figures in unapologetically bold, sensual, and celebratory ways. He claimed that he wasn't aiming for titillation, rather a deep respect for the human form and sexuality free from moral judgment. Even in explicitly erotic works, he rarely leaned toward realism. His forms were often abstracted, symbolic, or stylised, emphasising the universality and spiritual nature of sexuality, rather than focusing on individual identity and detailed anatomy. Much of his erotic imagery draws inspiration from African rock art, ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Polynesian sources.

His visual language insists on being both abstract and witty. A tendency towards caricature and cartoon encapsulates much of his work, as for example his eight legged pets, naked bodies without torsos and then without legs, feathers cradling baby birds, multi-limbed eyes, brightly-coloured naked bodies with rainbow genitals, a flock of birds that is a tree. Whatever the subject and inspiration, Battiss’s abstraction is always humanised with a soft animism. His joyous personality creaks out of every image.