Lot 14 , Tobit Roche, (b.1954), Breaking Wave St Leonards, 2021, oil on khadi paper, 25 x 40 cm

Tobit Roche
(b.1954)
Breaking Wave St Leonards, 2021
oil on khadi paper
25 x 40 cm
£800-1,200
To communicate being there – whether it is high in the Himalayas or on St Leonards beach – is painter Tobit Roche’s ambition as he makes his first small paintings of each new scene, en plein air. They convey the immediate sense of time and space, weather and light, a sense of a particular experience that resists photography. Back in the studio, Roche uses these studies as the basis of large paintings that incorporate elements of imagination and memories. This is where, he says, “the subject begins to emerge. There is a spiritual quality to the searching, time is important too, with its accumulated judgements, allowing the emotions and subconscious to find a sense of the sublime.”

Born in Manchester, Tobit spent his childhood in Hong Kong, Canada and India. After studying at the Ontario College of Art, Canada, he spent a year living and working with Duncan Grant at Charleston Farmhouse, East Sussex before completing his studies at Camberwell School of Art. Roche divides his time between London and Hastings and, when possible, travels frequently to India.

Roche has exhibited widely in England, including at the Grosvenor Gallery, Leighton House and the Maas Gallery in London, as well as in Canada and India.