I have lost a dear friend, Eileen Rositzska, who died suddenly last week. I met Eileen during my time in Berlin, after she returned from studying in Scotland, completing a PhD researching war movies. Eileen had a special kind of energy about her. It turned out that she was musically gifted, writing the music and words for her own songs, playing keyboard and guitar. The musical side of her life mattered so much to her and I loved our collaborations. She came to play her keyboard at the finissage (closing event) of my Berlin exhibition. She organised trips to several jazz clubs in Berlin, and we saw Elton John in concert. Eileen made things happen and she made them enormous fun.
One day I sent her a video I had made with art made in response to movies, and back came the video with a sound track - she had added a song that she had written.
When I made a second video, she wrote a new song based on the title of the artwork series – Notes in the Dark. Each part of that was wonderful but she also worked out and added the music so that it timed exactly with the video. We gave the video its London première in September 2018, and Eileen flew in from Berlin.
More recently Eileen compiled and sent themed playlists to a group of us who had met online to keep our creativity alive during lockdown. Here’s one of them on the theme of Sparks:
Eileen was indeed a spark that burned bright and illuminated our lives. She gave so much and was so smart. No wonder we feel so deeply sad ~
She sang her own song. acrylic on canvas, 50 x 60 cm. Lynne Cameron, May 2021. For Eileen.