Artist: Elsa Rouy

Patricia Low Venezia presents Sleeping Beauties, the first solo exhibition by UK-based artist Elsa Rouy at the gallery, comprising nine paintings and two drawings created specifically for this show.

Elsa Rouy paints cryptic bodily entanglements. Desire and disgust push and pull in the British artist’s works, connecting with the psyche’s dark recesses. While she does not make direct links between her own experiences and the content of individual works, these troubled bodies allow her to express and embrace uncomfortable feelings that we often attempt to suppress. Many of her figures are nude, others half-clothed in garments that reveal as much as they conceal, as they engage in ambiguous power dynamics. Their skin has a plastic sheen, combining the blood and guts of living flesh and the veneer of the artificial. Jagged marks of paint scar her bodies, bubbling across bare toros. Uncomfortable positions dominate, as her subjects are comprised of disconnected collaged body parts before being painted.

For Sleeping Beauties, Rouy plays with a greater sense of passivity than in previous works. Many of her subjects seem vulnerable, in positions of repose rather than taking part in overtly sadistic activity. It is left to the viewer to decide whether their passivity is enforced or chosen by them. In I never wanted to be awoken, two figures who appear in need of help fail to do anything for each another; one is shown with their spine and leg bent backwards, reflective of a classic horror film pose, while the other’s eye is stained with vivid red. Regret shows another pair of bodies in bed, the foregrounded figure turned towards the viewer with a look of fear or shame. The title of the show purposely contrasts a serene phrase with darker undertones, a conflict that runs through much of Rouy’s work, which is painted beautifully using a rich colour palette while depicting at times disturbing material.

These paintings include the viewer directly. Endless stream of reminders features a crowd of faces, their bodies blending into the darkened background like apparitions. Some gaze at us, while others seem lost in a moment of pleasure. The occasional disembodied breast emerges from the darkness, while hands grab at faces; it’s unsure which characters they belong to. Watched by multiple figures in the painting, we become part of its power dynamic rather than invisible observers.

Elsewhere in Protection, a gender ambiguous adult is shown cradling a smaller figure on their lap. What first appears to be a baby or child becomes confused on closer inspection, as they have fully grown breasts. The protective figure glares at the viewer as though we are an attacking force. These two bodies could be understood as dual parts of the same person, one protecting the more vulnerable aspect. The child figure appears genuinely peaceful, as though safe in the knowledge that its protector can keep it from harm.

The exhibition also includes a series of drawings, which Rouy rarely shows. Detailed renderings of faces and a torso depict a heightened sense of skin and the blood that pulses underneath it. Like her paintings, her drawn faces are exaggerated and warped, their cheeks soaked in deep red and pink. While made through vastly different processes, Rouy’s ephemeral use of charcoal in these works reflects her approach to painting, in which thin, ghostly layers create an emotional skin rather than a purely physical one, as she homes in on the surface sensation, sweat and tears that connect our inner and outer worlds.

Elsa Rouy lives and works in London. She graduated from Camberwell College of Art in 2021 and has since had solo shows at galleries including GNYP in Berlin, Guts in London and Steve Turner in Los Angeles. In 2026, Rouy has an institutional show at Museum Elektrownia, Radom.