In Ciara Roche’s artworks, thick swaths of paint are mopped around the surface of the support to create paintings that are often small but full of detail. The treatment of light and colour in these works, has the effect of creating a world that is vividly alive

Ciara Roche makes hundreds of small paintings on paper, some that are based on her own photographs, and others influenced by a piece of writing or film that resonates with her. Some of these small paintings on paper go on to become larger paintings on canvas.

The artworks in nightcall begin in the evening then move to dusk, then to night. These are not comfortable paintings; rather they are uneasy domestic scenes, scenes from hotel bedrooms, public bathrooms, car parks, off-licences and chippers: places that could be anywhere or nowhere, places we pass through on our way somewhere else, somewhere better.

Nightcall is a song by French musician and producer Kavinsky about a boy who has risen from the dead and invites the girl he loves to join him for a ride in his car so he can tell her how he feels. We are the invited girl, we sense the uneasiness, even the danger but we are drawn in by the seductively painted surfaces. We get a glimpse into a world that is recognisable, but remains out of reach, strange and uncanny.

Ciara Roche is a painter based in County Wexford. Solo exhibitions include: mother’s tankstation, Dublin in 2021; Here and Away, the Lab Gallery, Dublin in 2019; St. Carthage Hall, Lismore, Waterford in 2016. Roche has an upcoming solo show in Butler Gallery, Kilkenny in 2024.

Recent group exhibitions include MATAIRLANDIA – World Trade Centre – Jakarta and Selasar Sunaryo – Bandung in Indonesia 2022; Generation 2022 – Butler Gallery 2022; Hennessy Craig Exhibition – Royal Hibernian Academy 2022 and Ochre (two person) at Wexford Arts Centre 2021. Her work has also been shown in the Glucksman, Cork, VISUAL, Carlow and Periphery Space, Wexford, among others.

She was awarded the Next Generation Award with the Arts Council and won the KM Evans painting prize in 2022. In 2020 she won the Éigse Graduate Prize with Carlow Arts Festival for her work in ARTWORKS, Visual. In 2019, as part of a collective of 3 artists she was awarded a Wexford County Council Per Cent Per Art Commission for a community-based project. She is recipient of Arts Council, ArtLinks and Creative Ireland bursaries

Roche’s work is in many significant collections including the Maybourne Beverly Hills Hotel, USA; Chateau La Coste, France; the Lismore Castle Collection, the University College Cork Collection and private collections throughout Ireland, Europe, USA and China.

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