Sans titre, 2013

Karine Rougier  

Floating on the white surface of the paper, Karine Rougier's drawings house a curious, disturbing, sexual and sometimes macabre population. Evanescent, lost in the immensity of an A4 sheet or a 120 x 115 cm plan (in particular), the characters discreetly continue their anxiety-inducing and liberated activities. The black line draws each hair, each coat, each detail with a precision that undoubtedly comes from a certain form of obsession. Everything then combines to lay the foundations of a precious and sassy work, in which the most vague dreams take shape with formidable clarity. Everything crosses Karine Rougier's world, medical imagery, shamanism, the Indian gods, Batman and Hieronymus Bosch… the sources blur without any other distinction than their role in the narrative composition of the drawing. But these creatures seem to be drowning, the artist leaves them in the depths of the image, she keeps them at a distance lest they appear in reality with too much confidence. The use of the solid pattern also participates in this precaution, it reminds us of these figures from the other world in their condition as artefacts. So Karine Rougier contains them in the Pandora's box that constitutes her abundant work. Guillaume Mansart, 2010.