Phoebe Lesch

Clay is the medium I use to create human figures, which are sometimes fired and sometimes cast in another material. On occasion, stone is also a material I use. Modelling in clay is the activity I always return to.

This series of works plays with modules. The basic elements are ten individual silhouettes, which can be combined like musical notes. Building on that, I created three ink drawings, each measuring 100 x 70 cm. I moved on to a series of ceramic works made of tiles and also experimented with screen printing, incorporating glitches into my designs. Most of these works were created in Rome, a city whose powerful past never fades and which holds immense cultural and historical significance as a gateway between Europe and North Africa. Despite often cursing its immobility, I spent six years in Rome, which were crucial to my artistic and personal development.

Belfagor is a hybrid of space shuttle and sarcophagus. The attempt to sculpturally capture the space around a figure, to give an outline not to matter but to nothingness. There are two versions of Belfagor. The first was hand-carved from shell limestone in 2013, while the second was computer-designed and milled from polyurethane in 2015. Although the forms are very similar, the feel is very different.

The idea for ‘Walk-in: The Fluuz’ (فلوس in Egyptian Arabic, meaning ‘money')  came from my first trips to Egypt and Sudan in 2022. This is my first piece in which text and the digital realm play a prominent role alongside the sculptures. These can be viewed either as props that illustrate the narrative or as the remains of an archaeological site. The story follows a fictional character who explores a pyramid, encountering animals and mythical creatures, and experiencing a series of adventures. The multi-layered symbolism of the Egyptian pyramid and its well-known passages and chambers naturally form part of this grotesque tale, in which the bird and the pyramid (or art and its creator) emerge transformed. The relationship between reality and illusion is an important theme in this long-term project. The narrative of 'Walk-in: the Fluuz' presents one version of reality, and the sculptures prove it through their physical presence.They are artifacts of a fictitious world that have been rediscovered. It transpires that this fictitious world is actually the real one, but this must reveal itself in its own time. The project was awarded a research grant from the DAKU Fund for the performing arts in Berlin, Germany in 2023.  

I like to use clay in my work, which, of course, is a product of the earth. When I first came to Luxor, the significance of the Nile altered my view of nature. Nature had never seemed so unique to me as it did in Egypt. I thought it had been invented there and that the rest of the world had received a pale imitation of it. I suppose this is because living in an industrialized environment has an impact on both nature and humans that I was not fully aware of before. Besides, the clay there is exceptional. So, what was I supposed to do? I started reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The cyborg Hel in Metropolis, humanoid robots versus data driven AI, the idea that humans are being swallowed up by a data octopus—these themes have been meandering through my practice since the beginning. For me, the current era represents a paradigm shift. Could this be a repeat of the upheavals that preceded the First World War? I'm not sure, but I gain a lot of interesting insights from examining artists' work from that era. 

My drawing practice comes in phases, and I always create series of works. Although it resembles a thought process, it has nothing to do with thinking; it is completely intuitive and provides access to deeper realms where all the reading and writing work done beforehand is eclipsed, making way for surprising connections. Drawing helps me progress to the next stage of my work, but I also see it as having its own artistic value.