Lisa Rochfort

Lisa Rochfort works in her country studio, ‘Yarrenbool’ in rural NSW in a township called Manilla. The name comes from the Gamilaraay language, it is said to mean ‘winding river’. Manilla lies next to the Bundarra-Barraba, an important bird sanctuary imperative to the conservation of the critically endangered Regent Honeyeater. A better terrain could not be found for an artist embedded in the subtle tides and rare patterns of the natural world. The pale winter light, the wind articulating every moving leaf, schools of birds taking formation in the sky, all of this falls into the lines and forms of her vision. “I don’t look at nature” Rochfort reflects, “I read it and immerse myself deeply within it. Nothing around me is static and as a result, the composition of my large prints and smaller ceramics might be mapped - but they can never fully be planned. I will conceive a carving and then very swiftly depart from it for the next eight hours of work. I guess that is the main difference between art and design. In art, the template always get lost and inevitably, it just transforms.” Intricate, profoundly faceted detail is a hallmark of Rochfort’s work.