Pieter Vermeersch unites painting and stone in Dubai debut
The Belgian artist's first exhibition in the United Arab Emirates explores the relationship between painted surfaces and geological matter, allowing each material its own agency.
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Pieter Vermeersch’s new works at Perrotin Dubai treat painting and stone not as hierarchical partners but as distinct entities that enter into conversation. A circular panel of serene periwinkle floats above a fragment of found stone in warm ochre and cream, its surface weathered by geological time. The painted form hovers, purposeful and clean, while the stone below speaks of deep history and weight. Neither dominates; instead, they coexist in productive tension.
Since 2013, Vermeersch has developed this vocabulary of assemblage, working with found and cut stone, wood, and petrified wood as active participants rather than passive grounds. His practice acknowledges what the material itself carries: the physical presence of something ancient, the visual language written into its surface by time. A second work pairs a muted gradient panel, shifting from grey through taupe to palest ochre, with a lower stone element whose fractured edge creates its own geography of light and shadow.
What emerges across the exhibition is not conflict but a kind of relational freedom. The painted and the found remain visibly separate, mounted as distinct components on the white gallery wall. Yet by inhabiting the same frame, they create new meaning together. The work speaks to agency beyond the human hand: how material itself participates in making art, how a stone’s age and a panel’s colour can enter into equal discourse.
Vermeersch’s exhibition at Perrotin Dubai runs through 22 November. The gallery, which represents the artist, continues to work with established and emerging voices exploring material, form and the boundary between the conceptual and the tangible.
Imagery courtesy of Perrotin (@perrotin).
