Rocaille –  Forêts imaginaires à l’encre de Chine

Rocaille is an Indian ink painting by Virginie Martin Blaise, created in 2021 as part of the Forêts imaginaires series. Executed on watercolour paper, the work evokes a fragmented forest landscape where mineral and vegetal forms merge into an unstable, imagined terrain.

Dense black ink areas contrast with lighter washes, creating a layered composition marked by sharp, angular branches and shadowy masses. The interplay between precise linear strokes and diluted ink suggests erosion, accumulation, and the slow transformation of matter within the landscape.

Neither fully forest nor purely rock formation, Rocaille inhabits an in-between space where nature appears abstracted and unsettled. The painting invites a contemplative reading of instability and persistence, offering a vision of landscape as a shifting, organic structure rather than a fixed place.