Jim Roche

In my paintings I try not to paint something. I want the paintings to be purely abstract, but in spite of this they wander back to being an image of this, that or something else. However unrecognizable that something is, you know it's something.

What's most disturbing about studio visitors is their fascination with trying to figure out "What is that?" People come by the studio and look at my work and say, "Well, what's that suppose to be?" or "Is that a ........?" In response I often say, "I illustrate children's books." I don't, but that explanation usually makes everyone happy. As an abstract painter I find it's sometimes best not to explain my work. If I do explain it people later tend to avoid me, as they are uncomfortable with someone who seems interested in just shapes, color and composition. 

My first art training was with my junior high art teacher Alexander Zelinski in Springfield, Massachusetts.  He would often mumble horrible things about Picasso or Matisse , but when students handed in a work that was influenced by Picasso or another more abstract artist he always found what was right about it,  then he'd get you to go to the library and look at Picasso or whoever. To this day many of the biomorphic shapes and visual relationships in my work remind me of work I created in his class. When I teach I hope to at least match the quality of his teaching. Maybe most important was that at the end of the day he was reluctant to go home, he wanted to stay in the studio. Art was important. The math and science teachers ran out of the building, but Mr. Z stayed working, making art.

My college career began at Holyoke Community College, near Amherst Massachusetts. Two of my teachers, Ted Smith, a conceptual artist, and Frank Cressotti, a painter, made me see art as something to take serious, something to live for.  Frank taught me to be free with paint, to experiment, to use gesso extensively to cover up experiments and to think, eat, drink and breath art. Don't just make art, go see it, read about it, argue over it! Eat art if you can. At HCC I was introduced to Frank Stella's early work, Vito Acconci, Kurt Schwitters, Robert Raushenberg and Jasper Johns. And every semester a trip to New York brought me into contact with more art than I ever imagined. SoHo was exciting in those days, running from gallery to gallery, seeing Richard Sierra here, David Flavin there, and it was still full of industrial spaces. You made art, it was about object making, process.

Other influences, more from books than face to face experiences included Juan Miro (surprise), Picasso, David Hockney (sometimes what he writes is as good as what he paints), Philip Guston, Willem de Kooning, Paul Klee Elizabeth Murray, and Arshile Gorky. Gorky has been a favourite artist since junior high school.

Finally. if I could own three artists works in my home they would include a Cy Twombly, a nice small drawing, a Motherwell print and a Franz Kline.

After junior college I attended the School of the Worcester Art Museum, now defunct, and graduated from it's joint program with Clark University with a degree in art (sculpture) and philosophy. Art at the museum, philosophy at Clark and Holy Cross College.  At the Museum School I studied under Robert Cronin who was teaching sculpture. He introduced me to the painter Katherine Porter who to this day influences me. With my first student loan I went out and purchased two of her small pastels and later a water color. I fluctuate from making grids and structures that I break down to using visual elements to instead create structure. Boston was a hotbed of "grid" painting at that time and there is always a grid in my mind when working, even on the simplest biomorphic shape. I imagine it against a grid. 

At Clark I was also introduced to the work of Al Held, Elizabeth Murray and many others. One of my favourite memories from art school was helping  with the installation of a large Isaac Witkin piece in Worcester, Massachusetts. I then travelled to Springfield, my home town, to assist with the installation of a Witkin piece there. At that time I was also fascinated intensely by the work of Anthony Caro.

For almost a decade I worked with David Grubb. David was a landscape painter, and when we first met and and he told me he painted landscapes I thought, "What for?" Well, with David I learned to make silkscreen, litho and wonderfully complex pochoir prints, and learned the ins and outs of being a working artist. To this day I find myself standing in fields and forest clearings thinking how this might work on a canvas. My newest work, while abstract, is heavily influenced by leaves, tendrils and moss found in British Columbia. There is not the disconnect you would imagine.

The past few years limited my time making art. I have been involved in any number of things. I studied neuropsychology (The Fielding Institute), theology (Union Theological Seminary) and law (CUNY Law School). This left me distracted from art for a while, but for some time now I have refocused my efforts, not just on painting but printmaking as well.

I now live in British Columbia. I spend summers in Europe, usually Italy, Venice and Sicily. This last year I spent the summer drawing and making small gouache paintings in Japan. When travelling I find myself looking at landscapes, intimate spaces in nature and patterns of lyrical growth. I am off to Europe for the summer again, this time armed with my computer and drawing tablet, later to return to New York and then British Columbia.