Lavoir Vasserot exhibition - Contrast & balance

Space and matter: tension at the heart of the process
Belgian ceramist Luc Rousseau invites us to explore a world of contrasts and balances.
His works play on opposites: raw and polished materials, smooth and textured surfaces. Earth is imprinted with relief or woven.
Each piece brings fullness and emptiness into tension. Volumes interlock, creating worked interstices that invite the viewer to come closer, to observe, to be drawn in by the details and, ultimately, to become aware of the importance of empty space at the heart of sculpture.
It's a two-step process: first embracing the form as a whole, then delving into the details, exploring textures, cracks and hollows. This back-and-forth gaze evokes the workings of a mechanism: an alternation between stability and imbalance, a latent dynamic that prefigures movement. Exploration then becomes a dialogue with the object, a silent waiting before the impulse.


Movement and balance
Luc Rousseau questions the boundary between the still and the animate, the inert and the living. His contrasting surfaces and eroded edges are signs of an ongoing transformation. Each tear becomes a passageway between a before and an after, a story sculpted in matter.
This fascination with latent movement is particularly evident in his recent creations, inspired by engine cams. The cam converts rotary motion into rhythmic oscillation, giving the machine a regular beat. Luc Rousseau adapts this mechanical principle to his volumes: his sculptures appear to be in unstable equilibrium, ready to oscillate, as if suspended just before tipping over.
The illusion of movement is all the more striking given that terracotta, by its very nature, is a frozen material.
The illusion of frozen time
Immobility is only apparent. An unfinished form already holds the promise of future movement.
Luc Rousseau's work questions our perception of time and transformation. His sculptures invite active contemplation, where the eye wanders between what is visible and what can only be guessed at.