Julia Roche

OTOMYS, MELBOURNE

From the Sky
3 - 17 November 2022

In From The Sky Julia Roche continues to explore her personal connection to country. Fuelled by a desire to learn more about the land, she depicts her surroundings through an emotional and personal lens.

Roche lives and works from her childhood home of Wooroola, a rural property 20km south of Wagga Wagga. Roche calls upon memories and emotions from her past. In many ways her work documents this relationship, charting how the artist’s understanding with the landscape has evolved.

Roche embraces the vicissitudes of nature, responding to the changing seasons, weather conditions and energies of her environment. Roche works collaboratively with the land, inviting nature to imprint itself on her canvases. Working en plein air, Roche’s works are at the whim of the elements; insects crawl across the canvas, leaving tiny trails in the paint; mist, rain and dust settle on the surface, blurring paint and creating new textures, “each work becoming a site-specific record of the natural world.” Roche’s practice encourages sustained and symbiotic connections, embracing the complexity of the landscape.

Influenced by her emotions at the time of creation, Roche explains how she intentionally “paired back the palette of many works,” layering “transparent washes to create a feeling of depth.” Working during a particularly wet and unpleasant winter, the works within From The Sky poignantly capture the mood and energy of that season. Within Glistening Frost I, washy layers of blue pigment bleed across the white canvas, mimicking morning fog. One can feel the mist in the air on a dark winter morning or smell the rain as it falls across planes of lush gums.

Responding intuitively to the landscape, Roche describes how the shift in her work was not necessarily a conscious one. “When I paint, I don’t paint descriptively; I paint as I move around the canvas and the landscape, responding to what I feel in that moment.”  She does not attempt to didactically describe her surroundings, but rather captures her impression of a landscape, allowing memories and emotions to guide her brushstrokes.

Whilst creating this series of work, Roche worked from two locations on her property. A bad winter prompted her to “keep it local,” working from the land surrounding her studio and atop of Picnic Hill, a notable location on the artist’s property. Alternating between the flat ground of her studio and elevated vantage point of Picnic Hill, Roche was able to play with perspective, creating warped and dynamic worlds that draw the viewer in.

Many paintings within From The Sky are influenced by different times of day. Incredibly, Omnipresent and Dancing Trees on Blanket Blue were painted at night-time, using only moonlight to illuminate her surroundings. Roche states that “working at night allows me to let go.” Here, Roche surrenders herself to the energy of her environment, allowing the painting to take its own course. Julia Roche explains that in these moments memory comes into play: memory fills the gaps obscured by the darkness.

Exhibition Essay, Serena Cowie

Installation Images, Kate Collingwood