Elsa Rouy
Rouy creates artwork that is founded in a female gaze on sex, its anxiety, and its pleasure: she focuses on moments at the intersection of intimacy and sexuality, interested in the dialogue between subject and surrounding.
Elsa Rouy is an artist from Sittingbourne, Kent who now lives and works in London; she is currently completing her BA Hons in Painting at Camberwell College of the Arts. Rouy creates artwork that founded in a female gaze on sex, its anxiety, and its pleasure: she focuses on moments at the intersection of intimacy and sexuality, interested in the dialogue between subject and surrounding. She plays with depictions of female and male genitalia, making paintings of figures with their sexual organs revealed and using genitalia as a way to navigate anxieties that come with having, and being conscious of, a body.
The paintings also explore themes of emotional pretense and trepidation between people, highlighted through sexual intercourse. Her work focuses on bodily fluids such as semen, milk, urine, sweat, and saliva, using this imagery to highlight our paradoxical relationship to sex and its products – we find it at once repulsive and alluring. In addition to this, these fluids probe the link between pleasure, death, and reproduction.
Elsa’s main aim is to include the viewer as a voyeuristic counterpart within an erotic scene that feels personal rather than pornographic. Ensnaring the viewer with an initial feeling of comfort, intrigue, and excitement, then permeating this security with a subconscious reaction of repulsion and uneasiness.
B. Sittingbourne, UK. Based in London UK.
Education
2018-Current Camberwell college of the arts (UAL), BA Painting, London
2016-2018 University for the creative arts, Level 3 extended diploma in art and design: Distinction, Rochester
Solo Exhibitions
2020, Plastic doesn’t sweat, Guts Gallery, London
Group Exhibitions
2020, Platform, Unit London, London, Solo
2020, Limbo, Everyday Gallery, Antwerp
2020, Begin Again, Guts Gallery, London
2020, When spiders unite they can tie down a lion, Daniel Raphael Gallery, London
2020, Drawn Together, Unit London, London
2020, No time like the present, Public Gallery, London
2020, Guts Gallery Claps back, Guts Gallery, London
2020, Hands in the digital age, Molly Stedgwick.com, London
2020, When shit hits the fan, Guts Gallery, Guts Gallery, London
2020, Don’t Panic, Southwark Park Galleries, London
2019, End of year, Camberwell college of the arts, London
2019, Lazy Susan's Sizzling Prism, Safehouse 1, London
2018, Christmas show, The Flying Dutchman, London
2018, Foundation show, University for the creative arts, Rochester
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Top Ten Shows from the UK and Ireland
Mimi Chu, Frieze, 12 Feb 2021 -
ON VIEW BY FLASH ART: “It’s 2020 For F*ck Sake” Guts Gallery and Soft Punk / London
Flash Art , 11 Dec 2020 -
IT’S 2020 FOR F*CK SAKE
ART PLUGGED, ART PLUGGED, 30 Sep 2020 -
INTERVIEW WITH ELSA ROUY
SAINT MAISON, 7 Sep 2020 -
Begin Again is the virtual art exhibition tackling racial inequality
Gunseli Yalcinkaya, Dazed , 14 Aug 2020 -
Scrap that, lets begin again
TJ Sidhu, The Face, 13 Aug 2020 -
Begin Again: The online exhibition challenging austerity and racial oppression
Scarlett Baker , Love Magazine, 13 Aug 2020 -
Ten's to see 'When Shit Hits the Fan', The insta-exhibition by Guts Gallery
Paul Toner, 10 Magazine, 2 Apr 2020 -
The London art you can take a virtual tour of right now for free
Lucy Scovell, The Glossary, 29 Mar 2020 -
When Shit Hits the Fan (In the Artworld)
TJ Sidhu, The Face, 27 Mar 2020 -
Art markets find high-tech ways to reach buyers
Melanie Gerlis, Financial Times, 27 Mar 2020 -
This Instagram-only exhibition is full of London’s best young artists
Eddy Frankel, Time Out London, 24 Mar 2020 -
Guts Gallery present ‘When shit hits the fan’ a digital Instagram exhibition
Mark Westall, Fad Magazine, 23 Mar 2020
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WHEN SHIT HITS THE FAN AGAIN
FOR ARTISTS BY ARTISTS, 1 NIGHT ONLY. 4 Feb - 4 Mar 2021Through the invitation extended to established artists into the exhibition. We are hoping to reinstate a balance of power. Allowing established artists to shoulder emerging artists. 50% of sales of works sold by an established artist, will be distributed entirely to all the emerging artists involved. This redistribution of wealth offers a new outlook and model that is fundamentally for artists, by artists, creating an alternative system of support.Read more -
PLASTIC DOESN'T SWEAT
A Debut Solo Show by Elsa Rouy | It's 2020 For F*ck Sake – A Thirteen Artist, Back-to-Back Solo Exhibition Marathon 1 - 5 Oct 2020Elsa Rouy's Debut Solo Show as part of the It's 2020 For F*ck Sake Exhibition MarathonRead more -
BEGIN AGAIN
As society shifts, the art world shifts. We are on the cusp of change. 13 - 27 Aug 2020This is a time to stop, reflect, create dialogue, and put our words into positive action. To begin again we must shoulder each other, listen to each other, work together and collectively change together. As the newest generation of art collectors, we urge you to collect from this exhibition. The revenue made will support The Free Black University and the newest generation of artists.Read more
Begin
to proceed to perform the first or earliest part of some action; commence; start
Again
once more; another time; anew; in addition
With many thanks to Lotte Andersen for her continuous support throughout this exhibition, and to Pallas Citroen, Director of The Bomb Factory Art Foundation. Who is kindly providing a free gallery space as part of The Guts Prize.
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WHEN SHIT HITS THE FAN
Gallery openings have been affected by the spread of coronavirus 26 Mar - 16 Apr 2020Many art-related events, including Guts Gallery's, have either been cancelled or postponed, causing a large economic impact on artists and smaller galleries. We want to challenge this, putting our ethos of supporting underrepresented contemporary voices into action by navigating this set back through a digital Instagram exhibition.Read more