Portrait of Someone Else

by Eric Rottcher

“I begin most paintings without a fixed plan. I start with a few marks and torn paper from an old magazine, placed arbitrarily on the canvas. Once it is glued down, it forces me to respond. From there I build layers of paint and collage around it, then work against what I’ve made. I scrape, wash, repaint, and cut back into the surface with a scalpel, digging through the layers to expose what has been buried. Earlier decisions remain visible; the surface carries its own history. I often return to flowers and the human figure because they are immediate. A body is something we recognize before we understand it. A flower is just as direct, holding beauty and fragility at once. When I cut into the surface, the marks begin to read as experience rather than decoration. The figure bears the damage; the flower quietly holds it. The imagery grows out of personal history, addiction, strained relationships, and the weight of what goes unspoken. I am not trying to illustrate events directly. I am trying to surface the residue they leave behind. What remains on the canvas is not resolution, but evidence of survival.”