ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

JULIA ROCHE

Our Term 1 Artist-in-Residence, Julia Roche (Davies, He’03), uses art to connect with nature and explore her relationship with the surrounding environment. Julia lives on the family property where she grew up, on Wiradjuri country near Wagga Wagga in regional New South Wales. Her studio is an old 1900s woolshed where she is deliberately exposed to the elements. “I have a roof over my head, but it is very open,” she explained. “I often paint outside, both during the day and at night. My process is to immerse myself in nature to feel and to understand the cycles of the landscape. The idea is to respond to the environment with an authentic and uncluttered visual and emotional perspective.”

Julia’s work is a conversation with nature. She uses found objects and natural materials as well as oil paints. “The process is to help communicate the aesthetics of the landscape – it’s not just a pretty picture that is perfect and manicured, because our landscape is rough and rugged and beautiful. It’s inevitable that elements of my surroundings are going to be imprinted in my work and I’ve worked really hard at relinquishing control, to really welcome the environment and explore the idea of mutual recognition, where I feel like I am a part of the landscape, appreciating and responding to the environment, and vice versa. My aim is for the audience to create a closer connection between seeing and feeling.”

Julia said that she hoped that through articulating and translating how she creates art, students would build a deeper understanding of their own work. “I was thinking about what an awesome experience it would have been for me as a Year 12 art student to have an Artist-in-Residence talk through their practice and explain what happens,” she said. It had been 19 years since Julia had been on campus and she admitted that initially it felt “really weird” to be revisiting the Art School and Sinclaire Centre, where she spent a lot of time during Senior School. “I think that’s probably where my art journey really began. I created a lot of work in Year 11 and Year 12. The then Head of Art, Mr (Richard) Newton (Staff 2002-05), was quite influential in the evolution of my art. It was a pretty pivotal time of my life and I’ve still got lots of the works that I created (at GGS) hanging up around my house.”

Julia Roche’s next solo exhibition will open on Thursday 3 November at Otomys Modern & Contemporary Art Gallery at 424 Malvern Road, Prahran. Visit www.juliaroche.com.au for more information.