Aida Daghigh speaks with the artist about the evolution of her practice, and learning to balance control and intuition, abstraction and figuration, and personal experience and universal emotion.
Two paintings are propped against the wall, each containing the unfinished brushstrokes of a man and woman’s torsos positioned side by side. The longer I look, the more the two bodies seem to merge into one another, coalescing into one larger piece of work. Although contrasting in tonal register—one rendered in greyscale, the other in muted colour—the fluid, almost androgynous figures seem to inhabit a similar visual terrain, suspended between dissolving forms and figurative compositions.
The paintings are the first I notice as I walk into Elsa Rouy’s London studio when we first meet in December. She tells me that the work is part of the preparation for her first institutional show, Just Because, opening in January at MCSW Elektrownia in Radom. Over the past few weeks, Rouy has been busy working on several paintings for the exhibition, which includes both older and newer works. The exhibition marks the pinnacle of a busy year, during which she has already held two solo shows: I Pictured Skin at GNYP in Berlin and the most recent, Sleeping Beauties at Patricia Low Contemporary in Venice. At this stage of her career, Rouy’s signature visual language is recognised in the fragmented, ambiguous depictions of the body. Drawing on the corporeal presence of her subjects, it reveals more than physical form, offering a portrayal of intimate encounters—and the unknowable. As we sit down in her workspace, our conversation moves between her creative process, the essence of her practice, and the shifts and progressions that her more recent work has undergone.
Rouy describes how the more recent pieces differ from her earlier work, and how these paintings, larger in scale than her usual style, result in new physical demands. As she describes her process, it becomes clear that this new practical engagement has also shaped the conceptual motifs of the paintings. “I think, especially stylistically, because they’re bigger, I’ve pushed the way that I paint them a tiny bit more in a more fluid way,” Rouy tells me. Although the shift in scale lends itself to a less intimate process of making the work, the bolder brushstrokes do not result in a less intimate encounter with Rouy’s subjects; here, the flesh drags the figures into a more immediate human-like in texture and presence, yet the sense of plasticity and permeability still remains in a boundaryless state.
Rouy, who graduated from Camberwell College of Art in 2021, tells me that her creative process often begins with a rough collage. She describes coming up with ideas at home rather than in the studio, where inspiration from “movies, found images, abstract thoughts and personal experiences and feelings” often feeds into her practice. Working primarily in acrylic, I wonder how the physical qualities of painting inform the corporeal presence of her work. For the artist, the language and unpredictability of paint, its brush marks and application, “does more for deciding the facial expression, skin mark or shading of the image than my conscious effort.”
There is a sense of intuitive engagement with painting that Rouy describes, in which conscious ideas of form are surpassed by the milieu made possible for her figures to inhabit. At the core of this composition is a state of marginality between pain and pleasure, at times portrayed violently, at other times fragile, or humorous. Against still backdrops of muted colours, Rouy lets the bodies seduce and take up space; they challenge and tease, giving in to conflict and tenderness. The paintings reach a sense of unknowability, in which the absence of a singular, unified emotion or moment leaves the viewer in a state of estrangement—a fragmented gaze. As Rouy describes it, an in-between state where “the boundary of life and death and what it is to have a body” can slowly unfold. It is almost as if the paintings offer contrasting extremes to portray a purer sense of existence. “If you don’t let yourself be uncomfortable with the negatives, let them sit there, you’re not really going to find out more about what the positives are,” Rouy says. “And I think the bodies are trying to do that.”
In return, this suspension opens up to multiple interpretations, where obscurity leaves room for questioning, a process essential to engaging with Rouy’s bodily and emotional entanglements. It is then crucial for the viewer to place themselves within this unfamiliar terrain, allowing the work’s ambiguous nature to intersect with their own perception. What Rouy evidently does here is utilise the body as a means of narrative, a tool to convey, removing it from being classified as an object. “I think it’s the easiest way of depicting vulnerability and also strength in a way. The body is so easily manipulated; it can be kind of like a doll that you can turn into a vulnerable figure,” she says.
The skins that Rouy paints function as a site of expression, both through her depiction of the nude body and the shifting dynamics between the subjects. There is a strong emotional charge in seeing the subjects negotiate their physical form, moving between comfort and discomfort in different settings, and in turn a sense of voyeurism for the viewer, a cautionary moment in which you wonder whether you should keep your eyes on the moments unfolding on the canvas. There is an element of self-exploration in this aspect of the work—both for Rouy and the viewer—where the resistance to realistic portrayals can function as a catalyst for conveying complex emotions that are difficult to articulate. The idea of potentiality is brought to attention here, to view the body as an open-ended, permeable entity, mobilising a sense of extremity against constraints and policing of the body. As Rouy explains it: “I think there’s something about having all the bodies completely extreme. Depending on different aspects, when everything’s extreme, it becomes normal within the imagery. As a viewer, you can step outside of what is normal.”
But the notion of extremity comes with a caveat; to view the body as extreme, it must be understood as a means of expression, rather than as excess or spectacle. In the realm of Rouy’s work, there is a prominent layer of emotional register in which intimacy and vulnerability can be found, rather than viewing the portrayal of the naked body solely through its physical form. Corporeal presence in this context is not here to challenge certain gender dynamics or reconstruct the female body, although the aftermath of reception might have this effect. “If you’re not willing to look at it from a different angle than what you might take as what’s in front of you, you’re not really going to figure out what you think the artwork’s about or get a deeper meaning from it,” Rouy says. “You’re just going to see a body. It’s going to become a very one-dimensional way of being, about the female body or about gender and dynamics. And it’s not really about that. It’s about the idea of being, existing as a human, and feeling things.”
To encounter the work as merely sensational, as we discuss extensively, is to exclusively seek purpose in visual provocation, of a body fragmented and distorted, rather than through subtle negotiations. As Rouy notes: “I always think if I wanted to be really extreme, I’d do something with my actual body.” What emerges from our conversation is Rouy’s central engagement of de-objectifying the body. A key part of her work centres on empathising with the subjects on the canvas, where the body implies emotional proximity. “They’re not real people, not anyone specific. They’re more ideas of a person,” she says. Through this approach, shifting dynamics, abstracted memories and emotive elements gain significance in the depictions, rather than a fixed reading of the body as a static object. I notice Rouy’s emphasis on continuation and change; although the importance of certain thematic elements is focal to her practice at this time, the act of painting the body is a descriptive force, and a flexible and potentially interchangeable one.
“I think the emotional side of it is the actual consistent part of it,” the artist reflects. This emphasis on emotional register becomes evident when I recall my first encounter with Rouy’s work, seeing the 7.5-metre-long frieze A Screaming Object (2024) at her solo exhibition of the same name. The vast piece, composed of five paintings in a surreal, continuous landscape, suggests a more violent nature, in which fragility can be found amid scenes of conflict. As we discuss the newer work, I ask Rouy whether she’s noticed a shift in the tone of her visual language throughout this year. There seems to be a certain stillness in the more recent paintings compared to my first encounter; in the surroundings the subjects inhabit, their relation to one another and their engagement with the viewer’s gaze. The figures are not necessarily less confrontational, but they carry themselves with a sense of knowledge, as if their bodies have experienced the passing of time. Rouy’s progression feels akin to the process of one’s own body experiencing stages of life for the first time, with moments of unknowability and disorientation that feel extreme yet transformative.
Observing Rouy’s work through this chronological timeframe, it feels like the intensity of the earlier works reflects these experiences. “It’s a better understanding that not everything is shocking and amazing. It doesn’t need to be big—it can be slower and more thought about,” Rouy notes on the progression. The canvases are less populated; the intensity in these images is less relational and more concentrated within Rouy’s individual figures—each body, poised between grace and destruction, resides and moves within a certain tension. “I think I’ve removed a lot of the narrative that used to happen in my paintings. It made a more interesting image for me, because of the unknowability about it,” Rouy says. Some figures face the viewer directly, with a vulnerable look, while others break into a faint grin. They can be intense, amusing, or fragile, but most importantly, they remain suggestive of these feelings, alluding to states of reflection. With this subtlety, instinctive and at times visceral responses can come to the surface. As Rouy notes, “you can look at something and explore it, and explore what you feel about it, but the initial reaction is so instant.”
As our conversation comes to an end, it becomes clear that this recent exhibition was a layered culmination of the themes that Rouy has explored and worked with throughout her career so far. There is a way the body carries its desires, through senses that permeate the skin and keep score beyond consciousness—this is what Rouy’s bodies appear to instinctively negotiate. Through deliberate yet fleeting brushstrokes where figuration and abstraction intersect, Rouy lets the borders of bodies and their intimate encounters bleed into one another. This constant state of flux creates an ambiguous liveliness, allowing the work to take on new meaning and expand through the spectator’s gaze. What Rouy’s visual language ultimately does is give in to an ever-evolving and continuous expression, yet purposefully reflective of a wider artistic and personal practice. “It’s a very self-fulfilling way of living,” she acknowledges, “but I’m painting what I know. And I think the more I know, the more they know.”
