This is how she lives on
Marianne McGurk’s practice incorporates everyday found objects to create extraordinary, often-absurd portraits, landscapes and still lifes. In This is how she lives on, the artist explores her grief about her mother’s death through her collection of lipsticks. McGurk works with memory and ephemera in an attempt to capture the essence of the person her mother was. At its core, this project is anchored in loss and trauma, but it also incorporates broader concepts of absence, motherhood, beauty, fragility and metamorphosis. This is how she lives on is a memorial to McGurk’s mother, a continuation of the relationship that bonded them. The photographs function as visual memory, a tangible form to hold onto.