Alexandre Rochegaussen

RX&SLAG Paris is pleased to present Alexandre Rochegaussen’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, curated by designer and interior architect Pierre Yovanovitch, a leading figure in contemporary design.

Celebrated for his sensitive, architectural approach to design, Pierre Yovanovitch has established an aesthetic that is both understated and sculptural, deeply rooted in dialogue with the visual arts. His projects, spanning Europe and the United States, demonstrate a constant attentiveness to materials, light, and the singularity of the creators he chooses to support. For this exhibition at RX&SLAG, he highlights the pictorial universe of Alexandre Rochegaussen, an artist whose work he has followed and championed for several years.

Their collaboration is not new: in 2020 and 2021, at Yovanovitch’s invitation, Rochegaussen created the ceiling for the “Chef’s Table” at Hélène Darroze’s restaurant in The Connaught hotel in London, as well as the ceiling of a bedroom at the Château de Fabrègues. In 2023/2024, at the designer’s request, he produced an installation in Marie-Laure de Noailles’s bedroom at Villa Noailles to mark the institution’s centenary. Each of these projects reveals the shared sensibility and close rapport between an artist and a designer who both cultivate spaces inhabited by imagination.

Text by Pierre Yovanovitch

There is in Alexandre Rochegaussen a singular way of letting painting approach the living, while allowing the living to signal back to us. His animals are not subjects to be represented, but presences that the canvas brings forth without warning. They appear to us suddenly, with that energy and urgency that precede language: a tremor, a restlessness, at times a violence too, an innocence and a softness that merge. These are figures that tremble, leap, fight, tip over, bite, devour one another, watch us while laughing, hide, hesitate. They look at us as much as they slip away from us. Their unease is vital.

When I discovered his work about ten years ago, the painting unfolded through a drawn gesture full of great nervous tension, with instinctive lines. Everything, then, happened very quickly. The sheet of Japanese paper or thick cardboard was crossed in haste, as if in mid-air, as though trying to catch something on the fly before it vanished. There were many instruments of capture. The ground slipped away beneath the house. The figures tore themselves apart. The painter hurled his lines over the void.

Since then, a profound transformation has taken place. The gesture has calmed without ever stiffening; the forms have grown clearer and more substantial without relinquishing their fleeting unease. The protagonists have taken on full presence. The anxiety remains, but it has shifted: no longer contained solely in the freehand movement of the drawing, it now inhabits the image itself, the scene it sets forth and the particular way it leaves us hanging in suspense.

Rochegaussen’s animals are mediators. They are neither symbols, nor metaphors, nor illustrations. They are thresholds. They place us before an older part of ourselves, a place where emotion had not yet separated from instinct. The painter does not tell stories; he opens territories. And in these skies, something fragile moves through a shared unease, a vulnerability laid bare.

This exhibition marks a milestone not a rupture, but an achievement. An opening. It shows what endures and what shifts. It bears witness to an ongoing relationship between the painter’s hand, the world he observes, and the human animal who becomes his silent interlocutor.

What is at play here is a way of inhabiting fragility not as weakness, but as sharpness and strength. A way of being in the world while remaining permeable, open, and attuned to what trembles.

I am pleased to accompany this exhibition. Because Alexandre Rochegaussen’s work never ceases to remind me that we too are beings crossed by forces we do not always master, presences searching for their place, bodies moving forward with hesitation in a world that is constantly shifting.

- Pierre Yovanovitch

BIOGRAPHY
Born in 1978 in Aix-en-Provence, France. Lives and works in Haut-Var, France.


EDUCATION

- School of Fine Arts, Marseille, France.
- Bachelor's degree in art history, visual arts and cinema, Aix-en-Provence, France.


SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2025
- From November 22, 2025 to January 10, 2026 : Douce frayeur, curated by Pierre Yovanovitch, Galerie RX&SLAG, Paris, France.
2022
- La maison de mes rêves, SchoolGallery, Paris, France.
2021
- Ferme les yeux, SchoolGallery, Paris, France.
2019
- Danse avec moi, SchoolGallery, Paris, France.
- Les Rendez-vous de Saint Briac, Saint Briac, France.
2016
- Summer exhibition, Galerie Sabine Puget, Fox–Amphoux, France.
2014
- Animal on a mal, Galerie Agathe Gaillard, Paris, France.
- Mille chemins ouverts, Chapelle Fox-Amphoux, France.
2006
- Iconostase, Centre social de Belsunce, Marseille.
- C’est merveilleux, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Marseille, France.
2005
- Chatoiements, Galerie du tableau, Marseille, France.


GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023
- PAD, SchoolGallery, Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, France.
- Art Paris, SchoolGallery, Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris, France.
- Intermezzi, With Xavier Gerard, IBU Gallery, Palais Royal Paris, France.
2022
- 200 Malles, 200 Visionnaires, Louis Vuitton, Berverly Hills, Los Angeles ; Barney’s, New York, États-Unis, Asnières-sur-Seine, France.
- Art Paris, SchoolGallery, Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris, France.
2021
- Film screening, Le Magicien de V, Pour Louis 200, Singapore.
- Art Paris, SchoolGallery, Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris, France.
- Group show, SchoolGallery, Paris, France.
2020
- Art Paris, SchoolGallery, Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris, France.
2019
- Traits communs : les nouveaux territoires du dessin contemporain, Manifesta, Lyon, France.
- Art Paris, SchoolGallery, Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris, France.
- Group Show, Metz, France.
2015
- Group show, Centre d'art contemporain de Châteauvert, France.
2007
- L'oursin, With Julien Segard, Projection Galerie des Remparts, Toulon, France.


COMMISSIONS

2008
- Je suis le rêve, Commission of the Alpes-Maritimes General Council, France.
- L'oursin, Commission from the city of Toulon for a 35min film.
2006
- Iconostase, Screening at the Belsunce Social Centre, commissioned by the Arcade Gallery for an 11min film, Marseille, France.


RESIDENCE

2009-2008
- Cité internationale des Arts, Paris, France.


ARTISTIC PROJECTS

2024
- Les nuits d’été, With Pierre Yovanovitch, Creation of a fresco, sculpture and sewing for Marie-Laure de Noailles's bedroom, Villa Noailles, Hyères, France.
2022
- Jour Huitième, Text by Loïc Demey and illustrations Alexandre Rochegaussen, Cheyne edition.  
2021
- Imagine, Sculpture In situ for Pierre Yovanovitch, Private collection, Château de Fabrègues, France.
2019
- Les ustensiles du ciel, The Connaught, for Hélène Darroze with Pierre Yovanovitch, London, United Kingdom.
2018
- L'Ensemblier, Olivier Dutel, Lyon, France.  
- Revue Papier Machine N°8, Text by Maryline Desbiolles and photographs by Alexandre Rochegaussen, Brussels, Belgium.
- Revue Papier Machine N°7, Text by Xavier Girard and illustration by Alexandre Rochegaussen, Brussels, Belgium.
2017 
- Book Qui es-tu ?, Text by Jean-Jacques Viton and illustration by Alexandre Rochegaussen, Collection "Poèmes pour grandir", Cheyne edition.
- Chute la Vie, Text by Xavier Girard for diacritik.com.
2013
- Book Catwalk, Text by Jean-Jacques Viton and Photography by Alexandre Rochegaussen, Book Bazar edition.
2007-2005
- Collaboration, Photo reports, the magazine « La pensée du midi », Marseille, France.


PRESS

- Il était une fois, par Danièle Gerkens, ELLE Décoration, 09/2023
- Exposition : l'intérieur de la Villa Noailles à Hyères reconstitué pour le centenaire de ce "château cubiste, par Anne Chépeau, Émission France info, 18/08/2023
- Step inside pierre yovanovitch's reimagined scenography of villa noailles in hyères, par Christina Petridou, Designboom, 01/07/2023
- Hyères : « Les Nuits d’Été » de Pierre Yovanovitch à la Villa Noailles, par Laurine Abrieu, Milk Décoration, 30/06/2023
- Villa Noailles Turns 100 With an Artful Renovation Courtesy Pierre Yovanovitch, par Nicolas Milon, Architectural Digest PRO, 30/06/2023
- 16 Global Design Concepts for an Unpredictable Future, par Julie Lasky, Lila Allen et Lauren Messman, The new York Times, 28/03/2021
- Der Eigensinnige, Zeit Magazine,  30/03/2021
- Christo, Man Ray, Rochegaussen... les expos à ne pas manquer, par Claire Bommelaer, Valérie Duponchelle, Béatrice de Rochebouët et Sophie de SantisLe Figaro, 11/09/2020