In my visual practice I am searching for encounters with the presence of absence. To cope with this desire to meet the strange, I created a methodology beyond words. The visual practice starts with the ritualistic act of rhythmic lines drawn by the tip of a fineliner. These fine lines transform themselves in extended visual language working with embroidery, woodcarving, stone carving, painting and performance. In my artistic practice, I use the ritual too as a trauma release. In my associative methodology of drawing, my process of grief gets a voice. This drawing voice is not only relatable for me, the viewer can relate in their own perspective through visualizing images related to death, as for example using skeleton parts in the artworks. These skeletons are inspired by the ‘Dance Macabre’ of the painter and printmaker, Hans Hoblein the younger (1497-1553). In the print series, the moving skeletons and carcasses symbolizes the equality of every human life in which death doesn’t make a distinction between being high or low class.
In my unconscious mind, collective myths get mixed up with imaginary landscapes which transform themselves into drawn human bodies with visible bone structures, organs, and non-human entities. These friendly monsters come into the world as artworks raising questions relating to human’s tendency to ‘other’ the unknown. What do I mean when I refer to the term ‘monster’? Better re-define this question as: What power structures preserve the term monster as ‘other’?
In my artworks I am searching for ambiguity, in which boundaries, especially terms as ‘life’ and ‘death’, are blurred. The entities, in my drawings, have human characters. The observer relates themselves to the estranged creature. When I was exhibiting my drawings at the Limburg Bienal in Marres, Sandra Mackus wrote a review about my drawing. In the text she described the figure in terms of ‘harpy, skeletons, death and decay. And while the subjects are cruel, the materiality of the pencil fine liner gives the creatures a soft ambiance. They don’t want to harm you, there seems to be a melancholic state in the faces of the beings.’
INTERNAL ENCOUNTERS at Quartier (2024)
Quartier - The Hague
Material: fabric, soapstone, pencil pen, foam, papersheets, color pencil, wood, thread
In the exhibition of Bad Objects at Quartier, Ghazale Moqaniki, one of the organizers, asked for a moment of silence. The visitors were asked to surround around my round red fabric with the 8 small empty blue cushions. As the public gathered around the artwork, I entered barefoot. One by one, I placed 8 small soapstone sculptures on the blue cushions. After the sculptures were all in the installation, I gave them to the public. They held the sculptures for 3 minutes, while I layed on my red foam installation. First one minute, eyes closed, thanfor the remaining time gazing without pupils. After I focused on my own drawing, I looked up again. Standing up, I retrieved the soap stone sculptures from the public with the same rhythm in which I gave them. In the end, the sculptures were carried out of the installation, and never returned to the exhibition.
After the performance, I asked the audience: ‘If you put your shoes off, you can lay on the foam bed and watch the drawing at the ceiling.’
Photo credit: Django van de Ardenne
Material: pencil pen, pencil colour, paper, stone, fabric, wood and iron thread
Size: 2 m by 1,5 m
Photo Credit: Ellen-Rose Wallace
Material: Wax, ready-mades, drawing,
Size: 1,5m by 2m (drawing), 2,6m by 2,6m (installation).
Cover Artwork: Phantoms Edition of Simulacrum Magazin: Phantoms :
Issue 32#2: Phantoms — SIMULACRUM
Their feed spoke to them in a soft voice: Will you remember us, Rose? Won’t you forget the way we have followed you since we were born? The way we developed ourselves, grew past you. And flew to another universe.
Let us travel, lovely blossom, but don’t forget us. I promise that... We will see each other and walk together. Don’t forget.
An Internal Encounter is an art installation with pencil drawings, stone carved sculptures, embroidery and gestures in which Lore Pilzecker researches the absence of a loved one. Coping with the stillness, the artist discovers her own alternative reality in which the distinction between growth and demise becomes blurry. In the drawings and sculptures, Lore plays with symbols that refer to loss of life. An example is the Rose, a flower you could lay on a grave in respect to a deceased person.
At the Nieuwe Anita, I did a performative intervention. Holding a cushion filled with rose petals, I walked through the audience, whispering to each visitor, asking them to take a rose petal and stand by the wax sculpture. One by one, the visitors approached the installation, and the first person started to place the Rose petal in the wax sculpture. As others observed, they understood that this gesture needed to be repeated. The intervention ended when the last participant threw their Rose petal in the sculpture.
Material: fabric, soapstone, pencil pen, paper sheets, color pencil, wood, thread, rose petals and wax.
Material: pencil pen and paper sheet
Size: 1,20 by 0,70 m
Curated by Wessel Verrijt and Paul Koiker
Material: marble, wool, ironwire, pencil, paper, earth and seeds
A worm came to the exhibition of re-Membering Phantoms, craving the taste of a Rose.The crawling insect overheard the secret of another worm, talking about Roses that stay alive after being cut by transferring their life energy from their roots into their petals. Haunted by the conclusion that death could be evaded by ingesting the red petals, the worm started its search for immortality. After exploring for days the Worm finally found a delicious Rose. Drained and hungry, the worm gathered his last bit of energy and crawled towards her delicate crimson leafs. He closed his eyes and began snacking. After the first bite in the flesh of the Rose, a feeling of agony poured over its skin. When he opened his eyes, to see what happened, the blossom vanished.
In a verse by William Blake, titled The Sick Rose (1794) in the publication of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, a Worm seduces a Rose for a fast romance and this will lead to her decay. In the story above, the worm is fooled by his own desire for immortality. At the exhibition re-Membering Phantoms, artist Lore Pilzecker reflects on the idea of commemoration. How does one remember the deceased? When someone dies and loses their physical body, all that is left are stories. Lore tries to reflect on the story-like characteristics of the deceased and creates her own symbolic universe surrounding the death of a loved one.
Material: plastic, plaster, 3D print, paper, white pencil pen
In this project, I created a fountain installation that was reproduced from my own breasts, The fountains in the Neptune monument in Bologna created by Giambologna in 1566, are the starting point of this current research. The sculptures depicts four nymps at the base of the Neptune, each of whom is adorned with a spray of water from their breasts. The power of the Papal State was embodied by the Neptune, but the mermaids refer to the wisdom and fertility of it. In the Hydraulic Organ project, I aimed to create a space in which the female breast was separated from its fertile symbolic representation. The scultpures were seen as living organs in a dark environment that fought against the eternal beauty of the Neptune Fountain.
Material: plaster, wood, iron, black paint, fabric
In silence you can visit the remains of value makers from the past. The Hoisting is a synonym for elevating. Curio refers the object of a pedestal. This memento serves as footing which elevates artefacts. The form of the basement is subordinate to the functionality of an object. For example, when the pedestal is used to support a monumental statue, it raises the individual on a stage. The function is to alter the political person and transform she/he/them into an object with monumental status. This spectacle format strips the individual of the temporal existence and transcends them into a historical narrative. In the article “Een Sokkel, Maar Niet Langer een Voetstuk” from Iris van der Zee, a shift is demonstrated in this transcendental function of the pedestal. According to the writer Iris van der Zee, this purpose is transformed into the pedestal as an object of commemoration without celebration. The statues are toppled from their monumental base. The monumental value of the footing is changing, in metamorphosis. Where the pedestal first propagated ideas of elevation and timelessness, it now becomes something temporal.
Material: plaster, wood and mirror
When I studied for a half year in Italy, I visited Florence many times. This city in Tuscany is an example of a city that has a strong identity connected to art (from the Renaissance). The city offers visitors countless reproductions of these famous historical artworks. Of all these cultural treasures there was one ‘Mona Lisa’ for me. It was the David of Michelangelo. I became intrigued by the hyper-commercialisation and subsequent mass-production which essentially converted a classical art piece into a novelty souvenir. So I bought a replica of the David and took it with me to the Netherlands. This reproduction then created many interesting questions, regarding the relationships between mass tourism, mass consumerism, art history, culture and originality.
Location: Omstand (Arnhem)
Photocredit: Lost Painter
In my graduation installation “the self” becomes part of the iconic artwork. The work speaks of a paradoxical relationship between the viewer and the image in space. When one enters the space, a dilemma arises. The re ection of “the self” is opposed to the fragility of the work. You are drawn to work, but also rejected. There is also a paradox in visiting the “original” David. The visitors know the image from mass reproduction. The consuming self wants to strengthen its identity in relation to the image, by means of sel es for example. The iconic image attracts masses of visitors. The more money there is around the David, the more it is at the expense of the authenticity of the statue. The original will die more and more to the parts of the David will turn into mass-produced arte facts.
Photocredits: Koen Keivits
ALL INN - Het HEM (Zaandam - 2021)
Tiny Art Gallery (Swab Art Fair - Barcelona - 2024)
Photocredit: Tommy Smits
Jedam Osam Jedam (Rotterdam - 2021)
Stichting Plaatsmaken (Arnhem - 2021)
Material: Ready mades, 3D printer, gold paint
The relationship between the Cat and the Catholic Church is discussed through a meeting between two experts by experience, Gatto from the Santo Stefano (Bologna) and the Kat in the Sint Stevenskerk. The cats speak of a relationship that is always in flux. Contemporary Catholic cat lovers are mirrored to a past that wasn’t as cute as the pet itself.