I like Rochelle Motha, painter/graphic designer/resident of London, for two different reasons -- first of all she likes pain; not that I am a masochist but I do believe that pain is a good thing for an artist. The second reason is that she is not inspired by nature, yeah its far too green and terribly lit as Wilde said. Anyway getting to Rochelle Motha’s first solo art exhibition, now on display at the Barefoot Gallery, ‘Good Truth’, it’s a collection of 32 paintings and in each painting there is a phrase from her diary ... ‘painful poetry,’ as she would like to call them.
Each painting is an indication of how her graphic designing background has influenced her in her paintings although she asserts that it’s the other way around. Almost all the paintings have incorporated the female form -- sometimes very easy to notice sometimes hidden under layers of colour and words. “I think it’s my art that has influenced my design work,” she said. Nevertheless the effects are startling. The pieces that I really liked, Lover of lies, In the name, Safety on trial, Empty vacancy, Maverick, and Inspired all shows the influence of graphic design on her art and in these paintings the two elements have come together perfectly creating a work with many layers and meaning. Words are also freely woven into the visual scheme of her paintings which float deliriously around the surface of her canvasses like ideographic ghosts.
“There are many layers in the paintings. This batch of paintings have a phrase embedded and all of them are taken from my diary entries. If I see something stand out I take that and I draw around it. These phrases I think are underlying/unresolved issues in my life and I deal with them putting it out there,” she said.
Considering that the majority of the phrases are like this, ‘lover of lies,’ ‘unforgiven angel, ‘Lights hurts,’ ‘Refuted Art,’ it seems that she is/was in a very emo state of mind during the time she completed the 32 paintings that she claims she did in 6 months.
“A wave of inspiration hit me in the last six months and these feelings were evoked by a close friend. I don’t get the chance to paint much now in London after I had a child and then again London does not inspire me much but Sri Lanka is different. I just don’t mean the landscape and nature; it’s the people, they inspire me.’
Good Truth is on display at the Barefoot Gallery until July 25th.
I am a masochist but I do believe that pain is a good thing for an artist. The second reason is that she is not inspired by nature, yeah its far too green and terribly lit as Wilde said. Anyway getting to Rochelle Motha’s first solo art exhibition, now on display at the Barefoot Gallery, ‘Good Truth’, it’s a collection of 32 paintings and in each painting there is a phrase from her diary ... ‘painful poetry,’ as she would like to call them. 
“I think it’s my art that has influenced my design work,” she said. Nevertheless the effects are startling. The pieces that I really liked, Lover of lies, In the name, Safety on trial, Empty vacancy, Maverick, and Inspired all shows the influence of graphic design on her art and in these paintings the two elements have come together perfectly creating a work with many layers and meaning. Words are also freely woven into the visual scheme of her paintings which float deliriously around the surface of her canvasses like ideographic ghosts. 
These phrases I think are underlying/unresolved issues in my life and I deal with them putting it out there,” she said.