Visceral Memorial 2024 by Eric lobbecke

Size (cm): 51 x 193
mixed media
This artwork began with a trip to the Botany Cemetery. I sat with my mother buried since 1988, a lawn grave with a minimalist marble headstone. I took plasticine out into this sunny open space to fashion a bust to remember, or to feel. I stuck it on the hot headstone and photographed it. “Sentience”, through the creation and materiality of my french mother’s ephemeral memorial. My relatives wanted her back in France amongst her ancestors, but mum found repatriation too costly. Ironically in Gadigal land, she’s close me and the French priest Receveur from La Perouse’s exploration ship, the first European buried in 1788 on this land. Random allegorical and anthropomorphic images, allows me to explore mark making agency, through digital tablet drawing, digital sculptural forms and plasticine figures, then rendered in concert with conventional oil painting. I’m investigating a “Visceral Sentience”, emotive ideas of ritual and repartition for ancestral artefacts to their rightful place.