Julia Roche: When our eyes adjust

For When our eyes adjust, Julia Roche will present a new body of work on canvas and paper, created both in the night, and of the night.

Working on her family property Wooroola, on Wiradjuri Country for the past six years, Roche has developed a signature painting style which both describes the land she sees, and is shaped by it—the layers of her canvases are a record of the environmental elements in which she paints. In this series, Roche works with a new immediacy; creating the conditions for what she knows of this place, and her materials, to form a bold retelling. Roche is working at night, and it is changing how she sees in the day. There is grit and tension in these works. There is a confidence that only comes from an in-depth consideration of this place over an extended period. When we engage with the places we call home with this kind of critical attention, we challenge what we see, what we know. We learn to rely on all our senses to better understand our relationship to land, to place, to home.

Our eyes continue to adjust.