A sincere congratulations to Julia Roche who has been announced as a Finalist for The Kings School Art Prize 2024.
Julia Roche will be exhibiting at OTOMYS from 13th-28th June 2024 alongside Juanita McLauchlan in their exhibition titled ‘Held in Place’.
Julia Roche explores her immediate surroundings situated in the ever-changing landscape, bearing sites to the emotive and sublime qualities of the environment. She lives on Wiradjuri country near Mangoplah in regional New South Wales. As land custodians, Roche and her family are learning about, and respect the changing cycles of the ecosystem and the disquieting power of nature.
‘Gums Ascending’ was painted plain air on an elevated part of their property. Guided by the elements, Roche focuses on what she feels. In this work, the trees are floating into the sky- they exist as elements, spilling in, drifting off, being light. And the sky exists as a record of the wind.
Roche hopes to elicit conversations about our relationship with the environment, encouraging a shift away from transient, fleeting associations towards more sustained, symbiotic connections. Her layering processes and intuitive gestural marks are abstract transfigurations of the real and the illusory, evoking the essence of place and marking a moment in time.
Pictured: Julia Roche, Gums Ascending, Oil, Mixed Media on Canvas, 122 x 153cm
Image courtesy of Defiance Gallery, NSW.