Julia Roche is an Australian landscape painter, living and painting in regional NSW on Wiradjuri Country near Wagga Wagga. In anticipation of her forthcoming group show at Otomys, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Julia to discuss her art and connection to the Australian landscape, exploring whether she's a Naturalist painter or an artist with environmental concerns. She also shares insights into her creative process and how she captures the essence of her farm's terrain, especially focusing on the significance of the ever-changing sky in her paintings.
OTOMYS: It is clear from your painting over the years that you have a deep love for the Australian landscape. Would you classify yourself as a Naturalist painter painting what you love, or are you expressing more deeply rooted concerns in your work?
JULIA ROCHE: I hope my art creates a closer connection between seeing and feeling. I share Australia’s great concern for our environment, from climate change and pollution to deforestation and loss of biodiversity. By painting ‘en plein air’ I feel more connected to place, I embrace wind, rain, dust and light in my landscape paintings and pay homage to the beauty, power and fragility of Mother Nature.
Each painting, big and small, serves as a site specific record of our natural world and more specifically the rural Australian landscape. As land custodians our family respects the changing cycles of the ecosystems and the disquieting power of nature.
OTOMYS: What do you think it is that brings your landscape painting to life?
JR: As an artist I am constantly evolving; thinking, expanding, collaborating. At the moment I’m exploring the depth of colour, mediums, loose compositions and layering techniques. As I continue to paint on elevated parts of our farm over a sustained period of time, I think a familiarity to the shapes and tones of trees, dams and creeks, the rolling hills and the ever changing mood of the sky helps to bring my works to life. As I build confidence and trust in my practice I feel stronger symbolic language emerging and a looseness in my technique, that feels exciting and holds strong energy.
OTOMYS: In a few steps, can you trace your process from conception to completion?
JR: Try and let go of briefings or guidelines (usually self-imposed!)and pre conceived thoughts of what I’m about to embark on.
Prep art materials – tapes cotton rag to canvases, arrange my baskets with paints, charcoal, lengths of dowel, oil sticks etc.
Pack it into the ute and head to an elevated part of the farm. Where I end up is usually determined by the weather (predominately the wind).
Take my boots off, prepare a work station and breathe it all before I start painting what I see and feel.
It’s a relatively intuitive and immediate process… I don’t rush but I consciously try not to over think and demand outcomes from my materials. I mark-make and layer until I feel its complete.
Sometimes this happens with ease and other times I will bring a work out again and again, or continue working on it back in the studio.
OTOMYS: I imagine you know the clusters of trees, bodies of water and rock formations on your property in great detail. Yet the sky is constantly changing offering new formations and light. How integral is the sky to your landscapes?
JR: The strength of the sun, the lightness of the sky, the heaviness of the clouds, or the mist in the air, determines the general energy and tones across all elements of my painting. The trees can throw purplish brown hues one day and can appear peppermint green the next. I think from the eye of the viewer, visually the sky can be a dominant (or compelling) component in my works, but for me, the whole composition with all its elements is interconnected.
I enjoy the process of layering translucent washes over and over to create depth in the sky…and I really enjoy the challenge of creating both gentle feathery textured clouds stretched over a still sky, or ominous clouds which evoke a stormy, foreboding feeling.
A sincere congratulations to Julia Roche who has been announced as a finalist for The Kings School Art Prize. Read more here.
June 12, 2024