"Light in Motion": Ian James Roche’s Journey from Long Island to the Soul’s Canvas
Written by Rebecca Padgett
In a quiet studio in Commack, New York, artist Ian James Roche creates bold, high-energy works that seem to pulse with spiritual rhythm. Lines twist. Color radiates. Movement is everything. But what truly makes his work resonate isn’t just the abstract forms or luminous energy - it’s the deep, personal story behind them.
“I’m just a human trying to understand where my soul fits,” he says. “Trying to find that joy in my heart that we all deserve.”
Ian James Roche is a self-taught abstract artist based in Long Island, New York. Born in Manhattan in 1979 to creative parents, Ian was immersed in artistic influence from the start. His mother’s keen eye for design and his father’s photography and pastel drawings left a quiet but lasting mark. At age seven, Ian began making expressive, abstract sketches. By ten, he was experimenting with graffiti in his neighborhood. He didn’t know it yet, but a visual language was already forming - one rooted in motion, color and soul.
Despite his early creativity, Ian didn’t fully embrace his path as an artist until age 35.
A Turning Point in Beacon
It was September 2014 when everything shifted. Ian visited the Dia Art Foundation in Beacon, NY, where the monumental works of Sol Lewitt and Richard Serra stirred something profound. “Serra’s massive corten steel sculptures, the way they made you feel small and awake at the same time—it was spiritual,” he recalls. “Lewitt’s minimalist wall drawings made me want to try one myself.”
He returned home, bought an 8-foot by 4-foot sheet of drywall, and reached for the same material his father once used: soft pastels. What emerged over the following months was his first major piece, titled Birth of a Superhero. It was raw, luminous, and spontaneous—a declaration that his inner artist had finally stepped forward.
“There had always been a creative energy within me,” Ian reflects. “It just took time and life experience for me to truly accept this space inside my consciousness.”
Art as Spirit, Art as Necessity
Today, Roche describes his work as “high energy” and “transformational.” He sees each piece not as decoration, but as expression - spiritual in origin and emotional in function. His style, shaped by early graffiti, intuitive drawing, and the minimalism of artists like Sol Lewitt, is kinetic and deeply personal.
“My art isn’t something I learned,” he says. “It’s something I knew.”
His studio in Commack is filled with large-scale pastel paintings, ideas for wall drawings, and fluid ink/pencil works. Music continues to be a vital influence - fueling rhythm and resonance in his pieces.
Roots and Evolution
Ian’s creative life has always straddled different disciplines. He took art classes throughout school, but initially pursued culinary arts - earning an Associate’s degree from The New York Restaurant School. He later earned an Interdisciplinary B.S. from the New York Institute of Technology, but it wasn’t until his mid-thirties that he allowed art to become his center.
And while grief from his father’s early death shaped much of his inner world, it also gave him a deeper reason to create. “He wasn’t able to carry the creative torch,” Ian says. “But I can.”
Vision for the Future
Looking ahead, Ian intends to exhibit internationally, paint large-scale murals, and collaborate across disciplines. His work is grounded in human experience - meant to connect, uplift and move.
“Art reminds us that we’re not alone. That our stories have meaning. That there’s beauty in feeling deeply.”
When asked about AI-generated art, he responds simply: “AI doesn’t have a soul. What we make as humans comes from real places - our joy, our pain, our longing. That’s something no machine can replicate.”
An Artist of Energy and Essence
From pastel dust to sacred lines, from childhood graffiti to gallery dreams, Ian James Roche is an artist of movement, memory and transformation. His work invites viewers not just to see, but to feel. Each piece infused with intuition emotion and spiritual energy. Each one reminding us that even the most abstract marks can hold deep, universal truths.
About the Artist
Ian's art has featured in Long Island and European publications, in exhibitions in Connecticut and Long Island which attracted buyers' attention and, in addition to showcasing his pieces in public galleries, he creates private commissions. Ian will be showing his work again in The Hamptons Fine Art Fair this July.
Ian James Roche website is here
Follow Ian on Instagram here
