In Karine Rougier’s recent works: entwined bodies and impassioned kisses; reimaginings of the Madonna and Child; costumed festivities; ardent cavorting; hands at work. Rituals of love that reveal a carnal connection, a benign communion between humankind and nature. When the artist forsakes her pencils and paper for oils and wood there’s the same physical dimension. Plunging into the material, much as she dives into the sea, taking inspiration from the underwater world, the artist plays with texture, creating abstract backdrops where reality and dreams, flora and fauna, stars and stones levitate – suspended at the heart of time. South America, Africa, Asia: Karine’s tableaux are impregnated with journeys, with myths and sacred rites. A fragility, an imperceptible vibration, emanates from her work – be it in her use of humble recycled materials or the delicacy of the most minuscule details – but equally they exude a magical power to reenchant our reality. More poem than novel, more music than narrative, made up of fragmented images and free-associations, of allusions and free-dives, the art of Karine Rougier is a vital breath which resonates with our tribal past and beats out time for the dance of the living.