Julia Roche

Born Wagga Wagga, Australia

Lives & Works Mangoplah (Wiradjuri)

Julia Roche explores her immediate surroundings situated in the ever-changing landscape, bearing witness to the emotive and sublime qualities of the environment. She grew-up and currently lives on Wiradjuri country at the property ‘Wooroola’ 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.

Her paintings elicit conversations about our relationship with the environment, encouraging a shift away from transient, fleeting associations towards more sustained, symbiotic connections. Working in her studio, a repurposed woolshed, she is immersed in the landscape and exposed to the elements. 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.

Working plein air and in residencies out bush have inspired and informed Julia Roche’s practice, alongside time spent living in Africa and her travels to Asia.

Roche gained a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the Sydney College of the Arts in 2008 and a Master of Teaching – Arts from the University of Western Sydney in 2012. She was a finalist in the Fishers Ghost Art Award (2024), Kings School Art Prize (2024), Wollongong Watercolour Art prize (2023) and the recipient of the Regional Artist Development Program, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery (2023) and Artist in Residence at Geelong Grammar School (2022).

Her work is held in public collections including Sydney University and Geelong Grammar and in numerous private collections in Australia, Hong Kong and the USA.