From November 14 to December 19, 2026, Karine Rougier will take part in the group exhibition Le temps fait bien les choses, curated by Alice Gauthier, at Conscious, located at 12 rue de Normandie, Paris 3rd arrondissement.
There are stones we pick up, collect, photograph, draw, or try to imitate. Stones on which we trace lines with a little water. Since childhood, something has drawn us to them: their shape, their weight, their sound, the mystery of their presence. They were here long before us and will remain long after we are gone. Within limestone, formed in part through the accumulation of sediments and living organisms, lies a silent memory of the world. So what will remain of us? Will we, too, become stone?
Since prehistoric times, stone has accompanied humankind in its endeavours. We have carved it, assembled it, engraved it, to make tools, build shelters, erect monuments and leave our mark. As children, we pick up a pebble without knowing why. We turn it over between our fingers, make out a face, an animal, a landscape. We invent a story for it. Perhaps this attraction connects us to something very ancient, to a memory that transcends us, yet of which we are nonetheless a part.
At times, stone even seems to come back to life. In the resin fragments that Karine Rougier gathers from the seabed during her freediving expeditions, the ocean has already begun its work: fragments of fishing boats, abandoned and gradually eroded by the movement of the water, become, through her eyes, fantastical and inhabited landscapes. Like an underwater archaeologist, she brings forth works that have the power to warm our souls. Elsewhere, in Vincent Bousserez’s photographs, stones take the place of actors in an almost theatrical scene. Everything seems ready to unfold, yet nothing moves. The performance is suspended; the leading role has become stone, forever.
There are also dry-stone walls, built without mortar or cement. Air and rain circulate between the stones. Each one rests against its neighbours and contributes to the balance of the whole. Nothing is sealed, and yet the wall holds firm. I like to think that we, too, can build ourselves in this way. Artistic practices are often solitary, but sometimes we need to draw closer, support one another, and form an assemblage that helps us stand upright.
I am reminded of the cairns encountered along coastal paths or in the mountains. A few stacked stones signal to those who follow that a path exists, that someone has passed this way before. Fabien Mérelle’s drawing brings me back to this experience of the path: a young woman breathes deeply the air above the bed of the Loire, from which the two stones in the drawing originate. We imagine her bare feet walking through the sand, the mineral dust beneath them. Her body anchors us to the planet. In Marina Vandra’s paintings, we try to decipher a language that feels strangely familiar to us. As when looking at stones, we sense that we recognise ourselves in it without fully understanding, confronted with traces of an ancient thought that eludes us. And in Cora Texier’s ink works, I like to imagine that each crystal, each fissure has just appeared before our eyes, as though we had been fortunate enough to witness the secret magic of the world taking shape.
In my watercolours on stone, I work with a drawing that is already there: dendrites, those branching patterns formed when water carrying iron or manganese oxides seeps into limestone. Time has already made its drawing. I intervene without seeking to cover everything, working alongside the stone. Sometimes, a moon or a silhouette is enough to place us within an immense landscape.
The works brought together here are by artists whose practices I have encountered over the past ten years. Bringing them together is a way of giving form to affinities that have developed over time. Like the stones in a dry-stone wall, our practices retain their individuality while responding to and supporting one another.
Time is alive, at work within matter, shaping stones over periods that exceed human comprehension. It forms them, transforms them, erodes them and moves them, but sometimes also brings them together and mends them, in a movement almost imperceptible on our scale. This same time is at work in our lives, allowing encounters, affinities and ideas to mature, intertwine and find their rightful place. It teaches us to work with what is there, to assemble fragments, to bring distinct forms together and make them hold. And sometimes, over the years, a shared landscape emerges, as though time had slowly been preparing this exhibition all along.
— Alice Gauthier
