Eric Rottcher

My work begins with unresolved memories—secrets, emotional weight, and inherited grief that resist closure. Working primarily in mixed media, I combine collage, décollage, paint, and found materials to construct images that hold tension rather than offer resolution. I’m not interested in answers. Instead, I give form to what’s difficult to confront.

Collage allows me to speak indirectly. I repurpose images from old magazines as proxies—scapegoats—for the thoughts and experiences I’m not ready to openly admit. These fragments become placeholders for faded memories, private regret, and lingering grief. The result is a kind of confession, but one marked by distance—honest, but not fully exposed.

My process is intuitive and openly visible. I layer, erase, and revise, leaving behind traces of each decision. Nothing is polished. I resist narrative closure in favor of what remains incomplete—what haunts, what echoes. My work seeks to peel back the surface, tracing the contours of what still lingers, and asks what it means when the past refuses to stay buried.

©EricRottcher2025