The Artist

I paint people the way I remember them, not the way a camera sees them.

ioche is a self-taught oil painter. The practice started with borrowed brushes and a single tube of burnt umber, and grew into a studio built around slow, layered work.

Artist statement

My work sits between portraiture and still life. I'm drawn to the moment just after something has happened — a cleared table, a dancer catching her breath, light leaving a wall. Oil lets me build that slowly, in translucent layers that keep a little of every earlier decision visible.

The journey

Years of night classes I never took, replaced by a stack of books and a lot of ruined canvases. Today every original is painted, varnished and packed by hand, and a small number of commissions open each season.