Daniel Roch | Phantoms

About

Daniel Roch prefers - where possible - to paint from life. Mainly because it is subject to the movement of time, to constant change, which seems to animate it with a far more vital complex of relationships for him to engage with. These relationships are, by nature, transient and elusive, and refuse to be captured. Therefore he is compelled to stay true to the discreet way in which they suggest themselves to him, and to simply follow. But the stalking of basically invisible things is problematic: you are always on the edge of glimpsing the thing you seem to pursue, but to stay on its trail depends on sustaining this peripheral state. When Roch succumbs to the instinct to view it directly, to frame it, to apprehend it, it simply vanishes. He can only assume that if 'it' exists at all, then the peripheral is its domain. Roch's work seems to gravitate towards some sort of thematic suggestion of drama or narrative, but he find's he cannot approach a painting with any preconceived notion of something he might wish to convey - that is to say, he usually does, but it is quickly dismissed - or transformed - as the painting takes over. Roch has found it is a mistake to persist in imposing on that process. For a painting to really work, he finds he must surrender to it wholly: it must become a form of ritual possession; a purely passive, compulsive, almost mechanical act. Location: Atrium Space 32A Hertford Road, London, N1 5SH