“The fine-grained, cream-colored limestone covers the houses; looking at them, one has the feeling of unfolding a color chart of whites (...) whose tones vary with textures, veining, and centuries. The Cognac region is an aggregate of micro-countries, stretching from north to south through the Borderies, the lowlands, the Charente valley, and the Grande and Petite Champagne. No one is surprised that in winter the sky takes on the color of birds, golden plovers or Montagu's harriers. Here, any color that is too bright, too cheerful, too ostensibly joyful is dissolved by the stone of time.”
Laurence Benaim, Un voyage à Cognac (Journey to Cognac)
The exhibition Mother Rock unfolds as a origin story: a geological and personal excavation. During 2025, artist Natacha Mankowski (Paris, FR, 1986) traveled repeatedly across here native country France, tracing links between quarries as one might follow a memory embedded in stone. The exhibition moves through territories shaped by a common sedimentary parentage, a “roche mère,” a mother formation, linking sites separated by geography but united but united by geology. Mother rock, roche mère or moedergesteente. Mother rock as place of origin and matrix of development. Mother land. Mother time. Two territories, one parent rock: an Upper Cretaceous substratum. A limestone formation, chalk-rich and interlayered with light yellow clays, born from the accumulation of marine sediments during a shared submersion of these regions 100 million years ago. The exhibition proposes a promenade across this geological continuity. A sequence of glass maquettes, paintings and sculptural gestures guide the viewer from the underground toward the surface. Walking the earth, digging the ground and carving forward : from the quarries of Aquitaine in the West to the open grounds of Berry in central France. The artist gathers fragments of territory : beeswax, linseed oil, walnut oil, but mostly sand, clay, and various limestones. These last, collected from Cognac vineyards and Thénac Saintonge underground quarries, are translated into naïve geographies molded in oil pastels and glass. The sediments reappear as textured glass and paintings. They become a secondary sedimentation: a slow layering that mirrors geological accumulation. The use of glass is a first for the artist. It recalls the historical emergence of glassmaking in Aquitaine, where sandy soils enabled a craft essential to storing and transporting Cognac. The amber liquor used to circulate in through European trade routes via the Dutch Navy. This knowledge of glass will forever stay inseparable from the Charente landscape as industry grows directly from geology. The journey then leads inward, toward the center of France, to La Celle quarry and the garden of Notre Dame d’Orsan — a thousand-year-old priory built on limestone and clay. From this visit, a giant panoptique is created as a walking meditation. A painted surface where excavation resolves into quiet. The palette of the show is restrained and mineral. A camaïeu of greige unfolds — from grey to beige — echoing the pale stone of Cognac and Orsan. The paintings hold a diffused, soft luminosity. Light celadon and yellow clay backgrounds with hints of sea green, turquoise blue, vermillion red like small windows opened within thick walls. Light appears filtered through sediment: compacted, estuarine, ancient. In an era defined by speed, extraction, and excess productivity, Mother Rock invites a return to geological time as a critical lens. To look closely at stone is to acknowledge durations that far exceed human economies, and to question how we inhabit, use, and exhaust. Through slowness, and material attention as necessary counter-gestures, geology becomes not only a subject, but a way of inhabiting the present.
To paint the garden, I start with something obvious: the earth, the golden clay. I find its complement: a turquoise blue phthalo. Through a simultaneous contrast, the two colors neutralize each other. Their vibrancy diminishes. Muted and desaturated hues emerge: verdigris, celadon, moss, jade, arctic blue, Orsan green… I mix walnut oil, linseed oil, beeswax, and quarry dust. I shape the colors in monochrome. Oil pastels, in lines or layers, I apply, I blend, I trace, I draw. The painting appears as a petrification of the garden. A process of transforming this nature into stone. As if to stabilize it, to keep it intact. The trunk, the tree, the fruit are absorbed by the environment of the canvas and turned into stone.
Torula. The angels' share benefits a microscopic fungus, Baudoinia compniacensis (Torula compniacensis), which gives the walls and roofs of the region's wine cellars a black color, like very fine soot. The authorities would scrutinize the walls and roofs to check whether a dwelling was hiding clandestine production. As stocks naturally decrease each year (by around 2%), the evaporated portion must be replaced with the contents of a barrel from the same source; this operation is called "l’ouillage".
Le lac bleu (the blue lake). The old clay quarries at Guizengeard. Between 1975 and 2013, the exploitation of white clay dramatically changed this forest environment. At the origin, this old kaolin quarry produced a beautiful white earth intended for the manufacture of porcelain. To extract and process the kaolin, operators dig up to 40 meters deep. After the closing of the open-air quarry, it filled with rainwater, giving rise to a deep artificial lake. The acidity of the soils of the different geological layers prevents any development of aquatic life in the lake (algae, fish, amphibians). The water is crystal clear and has no suspended matter that can absorb light. The lake sports shades of blue, from turquoise to azure.
VSOP (very superior old pale) refers to the youngest eau-de-vie in the blend. It is at least four years old. It creates a metaphor between the very light of this Cognac and the white color of the nearby limestone from Thenac, both used as inspirations for this series of paintings.
Oolithe (Oolite). Oolite (from Ancient Greek ᾠόν (ōión) 'egg stone') is a sedimentary rock formed from ooids, spherical grains composed of concentric layers. Ooids are most commonly composed of calcium carbonate (calcite or aragonite), but can be composed of phosphate, clays, chert, dolomite or iron minerals, including hematite. The stones from the Thenac (Aquitaine) and Orsan (Berry) quarries are similar : semi-soft, homogeneous, white-colored, very compact, fine-grained oolitic limestone.
La part des anges (the angel’s share). During aging, some of the alcohol evaporates into the atmosphere; this is known as the 'angels' share'.
Le coeur (the heart). The wine and its lees are distilled for the first time, which is called the first distillation. This produces the "brouillis," with an alcohol content of around 30% by volume. The brouillis is distilled again, which is called the second distillation. The distiller separates, based on the alcohol content, his nose and his expertise, the heads (first condensates), the tails (last condensates), the seconds, which are added to the brouillis to be redistilled, and the heart of the distillation. The liquid produced, the heart, is crystal clear, highly alcoholic (68 to 72% by volume) and undrinkable in its current state. It is stored in oak barrels from the forests of Tronçais and Limousin and begins its aging process, which will last at least two years.
Eau ardente (firewater). In the 15th century, wine from the region had been appreciated far beyond its borders for centuries. However, with its low alcohol content, it did not travel well and often arrived "spoiled." In addition, it faced stiff competition from Bordeaux wine, and transportation was made difficult by the Hundred Years' War. It was then decided to distill it so that this "firewater" could be transported in barrels along the Charente River to the kingdoms of the northern Hanseatic League. The Dutch were extremely fond of this brandewijn ('burnt wine', hence the English term brandy and the French term brandevin), which they drank mixed with water in taverns, ports, on their ships, and, more rarely, at home.
Les foudres (the lightnings). The blending (of alcohols to create Cognac) takes place in large barrels (foudres), then the cognac is bottled.
Banc Romain (roman bank). 'Banc romain' and 'pierre fine' are the two parts of the stone when extracted from the wall of the quarry. The “banc romain” is a very fine-grained white stone used for traditional building construction in France, specifically for solid elements and thin vertical cladding in opposition to the “pierre fine” (fine stone) used for decoration and details.
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Natacha Mankowski, 1986, Paris, France
GRANTS & PRICES - ART & ARCHITECTURE 2025 Stipendium, AFK, development grand, Amsterdam, NL Culture moves Europe, Goethe Institute, European Union 2023 Mijn eerste aanvraag, AFK, Amsterdam, NL 2012 Prix Tony Garnier, Académie d’Architecture, Paris, France EDUCATION 2011 Master in Architecture & HMONP, École Spéciale d’Architecture, Paris, FR 2009 University of Cincinnati - Department of Art, Design & Architecture, Cincinnati, USA 2004 University Pierre et Marie Curie - La Sorbonne, Paris, FR SELECTED SOLO / DUO SHOWS 2026 Mother Rock, Galerie Fleur & Wouter, Amsterdam, NL 2025 Walk the Earth, DSM Ginza, Tokyo, Japon 2024 Ballroom Project, Palais of Justice of Borgerhout, Antwerp Art Weekend, with Galerie Fleur & Wouter, Antwerp, BE Enter Art Fair, Galerie Fleur & Wouter, Copenhagen, DE ARCO Madrid, Galeria Alegria, Barcelona, ES 2023 In Dust, Valerius Gallery, Luxembourg ville, LUX Another Sun, Galeria Alegria, Barcelona, SP Milos, Galerie Fleur & Wouter, Amsterdam, NL 2022 Both Skies Open to Thunder, Valerius Gallery, LUX - with Henry Chapman 2021 Soil is Concrete, Everyday Gallery, Antwerp, BE 2018 Monument, Epigraphic Museum of Athens, GR Support - Surface, Le Consulat de la Gaité, Paris, FR - with Laure Jaffuel SELECTED GROUP SHOWS & PROJECTS 2025 Incognito, Sloterdijk, artist run space, Amsterdam, NL She Loves Me Not, Valerius Gallery, Luxembourg ville, LUX 2024 Art Rotterdam, Galerie Fleur & Wouter, NL Les costières de l’Art, Nîmes, France 2023 Art Brussels, Everyday Gallery, BE Sun-Day-Core, De Tag, De School, Amsterdam, NL - with Alexis Bondoux Project supported by the AFK Warmly, Huidenclub, Rotterdam, NL with Natsuko Uchino & Veronika Babayan 2022 La position de l’amour, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Le Magasin, Grenoble, FR - in collab. with designers and artists C. Seilles, L. Jaffuel and A. Bondoux Gado Gado, Everyday Gallery, Antwerp, BE Matière Primaire, Le lac, BE - Curated by Louis Lefevre Dead Darlings, Auction, Berlin, DE - Curated by Hanna Mattes Painter’s Painters, Galerie Fleur & Wouter, NL 2021 The Sun Also Rises, Everyday Gallery, Antwerp, BE - Curated by Leo Lopez Pot Luck, Everyday Gallery, Antwerp, BE 2020 Limbo II, Everyday Gallery, Antwerp, BE De Tour, Deschool, Amsterdam, NL - Curated by Anne Van der Weijden Stay at home, Hot Glue, Online show - Curated by Kaspar De Jong Pause in your flight, HVW8, Berlin, DE - Curated by A. André de Tremontels 2019 Nude, Everyday Gallery, Antwerp, BE - Curated by Boris Devis Dune, De School, Amsterdam, NL - with M. Van Olst Art Route - Get Lost, Playstation Sloterdijk, Amsterdam, NL - Curated by F. Parot Trait, Pôle muséal, Lisieux, France - Curated by Fleur Helluin 2018 Design Parade III, Finalist, Interior architecture, Villa Noailles, Hyères, FR - Curated by Pierre Yovanovitch RESIDENCIES 2025 Prieuré Notre Dame d’Orsan, FR (2 weeks) - Research residency in a 1000 years old garden and quarry in Berry region Athens, Nysiros & Gyali, GR (5 weeks) - Research residency, founded by the European Union & supported by the French Institute of Athens Fondation Martell, Cognac, FR (1 month) - Research & production residency 2023 De School, Amsterdam, NL (1 month) - in collaboration with Alexis Bondoux 2022 Centre National d’Art Contemporain de Grenoble, FR (1 month) 2020 De School, Amsterdam, NL (2 months) - in collaboration with Alexis Bondoux WOW, Amsterdam, NL (2 years) 2019 Palazzo Monti, Brescia, IT (1 month) TEACHING 2016 Workshop for Studio for Immediate Spaces, Dep. of Art and Architecture, Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, NL ARCHITECTURE 2013 Dominique Perrault Architecture, Paris, FR 2012 AAD, Architecture Anne Démians, Paris, FR 2011 Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Paris, FR 2010 Vito Acconci Studio, New York, USA PUBLICATIONS 2026 Mother Rock, self-publication, Amsterdam, NL 2025 Ritsona ou La paresse féconde (the fruitful laziness), Publication in collaboration with V. Gauthier, Amsterdam, NL 2023 In Dust, Publication in collaboration with Valerius Gallery, LUX 2021 Soil is Concrete, Publication, in collaboration with Everyday Gallery, Antwerp, BE 2016 Index, Publication for the Design Biennale 2017, in collab. with Laure Jaffuel, St Etienne, France The Waves, Les Vagues, Die Wellen - Rituel series, Self Publication, Berlin, DE