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Carol Roche was born in Newcastle, N.S.W. Her paternal grandfather, Ernest Ford Clark was a well-known Irish artist. When she was twelve, the family returned to Ireland, where she completed secondary schooling and took art lessons. She later studied art and sculpture under Professor Jan Reynard Goulet. Her first solo exhibition was at Caple Street Gallery in 1974.
After twelve months in Spain soaking up art culture, Carol married, and in 1980 returned to Australia. “Ireland was pretty drab and I missed the warmth and the colours of Australia,” she recalls.
She shared studio space with a group of artists, exhibited and took commissions, the most significant being three paintings for the AMP Gold Tower, a 4.5-metre contemporary painting for Lennard’s Hotel, Brisbane, and a bronze bust of Sir Harry Talbot Gibbs for the Queensland University Law Library.
She moved into community and open space art, winning a national award for sculpture. Creating cultural development workshops for troubled youth in Kingston was a turning point. “The kids were so talented, particularly the young aboriginal kids, that I was jealous! They bought me back to painting.” The first exhibition of work, at Metro Arts in Brisbane, was sold out.
Carol now has her studio at Wellington Point where the water views and bird life in the mangroves influences her work.
"I have always lived by the ocean and I am deeply drawn to the changing moods and ferocity of the bay. I am a free flowing emotive and intuitive painter. I have a strong attachment to the colour and texture of the paint; this attachment is seductive and is as important as the subject matter itself.”
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