Maria Roche
Maria Roche
About the Artist
Who I Am
I am Maria Roche, a Honduran-born artist whose creative journey began amid the lush landscapes of Tegucigalpa. From those early days, the natural world has been my inexhaustible wellspring.
I started my painting career in Honduras and moved to the United States in 1981. Since coming to the US, I have lived in NYC area and in Vermont for 35 years before moving to the Asheville, NC in 2018.
Early Life
What first attracted me to start painting was my love of colors and my ability to transform those colors into my own vision.
Early in my painting career I was inspired by watching a group of young children laughing and playing in the dirt creating a world of happiness and calm. The children showed me that we are always surrounded by beauty no matter where we live or what we see. My love of colors inspired me to express my vision of the world onto a canvas.
When I started painting my subjects were mostly of people. I moved from there to painting landscapes and still life. Artists that have influenced my life have been late 19th and early 20th century impressionists.
During my career as an artist I have had exhibits in Honduras with the United Nations Women's Art Exhibit, El Editorial Gallery and in Panama.
Art is a life long witness for me. I have been noticing and documenting an internal and external world for over half a century. Painting has been my primary way of participating in the worlds abundance.
Education
My formal training was at the Escuela de Bellas Artes, Honduras and later at Johnson State College. Vermont where I refined my craft, but it is the endless dialogue with nature that continues to guide my hand and heart today.
Spiritual Journey
My first response when people ask what I do I tell them "I love to create art. My work lives at the crossroads of the traditional and the abstract expressionist. Primary hues-vibrant blues, resonant reds, luminous yellows-anchor my compositions, while fluid lines and organic shapes echo the pulse of living things. Layer by layer. I search for the quiet equilibrium where color, form, and feeling converge, inviting viewers to sense their own bond with the earth and with one another.
Art, for me, is a spiritual pursuit: a way to reach beyond the surface and touch the shared humanity that connects us all. Through every brushstroke hoping to open a pathway-back to nature, back to ourselves.
I've been painting with oils on canvas for most of my career but recently I have started to also paint with acrylics and pastels. I love to paint using a palette knife.
I paint in a quiet corner in my home which has lots of natural light. I also love to paint outdoor. Light, nature and air has always been my principal inspiration.
Webpage
I have about 25 finished paintings, and I would like to share and sell all of them. In the past I have sold cards, prints, and reproductions.
Sharing my art with others is a profound act of vulnerability and generosity--it is a personal diary, a visual bridge that connects me with viewers. I would like to reach out with my art to a wider audience.
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