November 30–December 29, 2023
Installation Views
Works
Steve Turner is pleased to present The Only Daughter, a solo exhibition by London-based Elsa Rouy which features recent paintings that relate to the artist’s emotional experiences. She depicts figures that lack clear physical boundaries–different bodies melt into one another and bodily fluids drip and mingle together combining and separating the figures. Rouy is inspired by gothic literature and its themes of terror and romance. The women in her paintings are corpse-like, with cuts and ghostly or intense facial expressions. Rouy describes her works as a “visual portrayal of abstruse emotions where bodies are in a constant state of becoming, never static and always in a state of flux.” Her figures are grotesque, tender and vulnerable. Bodies with supple caressing hands engaged in transfigured sex acts are fused together as their weeping and desperate eyes stare blankly at the viewer. They convey suffering and pleasure, contortion and calm, life and death. They also convey an unknowable mystery that leaves room for viewers to use their own experiences to interpret the conflict within each work.
Elsa Rouy (born 2000, Sittingbourne, England) earned a BA at Camberwell College of the Arts, London (2021) and has had solo and two-person exhibitions at Guts Gallery, London (2020, 2021 & 2022) and Eigen + Art Lab, Berlin (2023). The Only Daughter is Rouy’s debut solo exhibition in the United States and Steve Turner will also present her work at Untitled, Miami Beach in December 2023.
Born 2000, Sittingbourne, England
Lives and works in London
Education
2021
BA, Camberwell College of the Arts, London
2018
University for the Creative Arts, England
Solo Exhibitions
2024
Guts Gallery, London (upcoming)
Ephiatles, GNYP, Antwerp
2023
The Only Daughter, Steve Turner, Los Angeles
2022
I Could Always Crack a Joke, Guts Gallery London
2021
A Demon in a Sundress, Guts Gallery, London
2020
Plastic Doesn’t Sweat, Guts Gallery, London
Platform, Unit London, London
Group Exhibitions
2023
Untitled, Miami Beach (with Steve Turner)
The Artist is Present, Guts Gallery, London
Saints and Sinners, Guts Gallery, London
Future Fair, New York (with Steve Turner)
Elsa Rouy & Emil Urbanek, EIGEN + ART Lab, Berlin
Wrinkles in My Sheets, Hybrid Art Fair, Madrid (Ye Collective)
(It’s My Party) I Can Cry if I Want to, Guts Gallery, London
2022
Human In Training, Tuesday to Friday, Valencia
There Goes the Neighbourhood, Castor Gallery, London
‘‘…and kneeling at the edge of the transparent sea I shall shape for myself a new heart from salt and mud.’, Kupfer Projects, London
Out of Nowhere, Soho Revue, London
Two Sisters, Roman Road Gallery, London
Damned If I Do, Gallery 46 Whitechapel, London
CACOTOPIA, Annka Kultys, London
2021
Brain Food Charity Auction, The Auction Collective, London
I Have My Eye On You, Everyday Gallery, Antwerp
Reality Check, Guts Gallery, London
Don’t Go South, Studio Berkheim, Stuttgart
A New Art World, Guts Gallery, London
Introducing, The Shop at Sadie Coles HQ, London
For The Many Not The Few, Guts Gallery, London
2020
Limbo, Everyday Gallery, Antwerp
Begin Again, Guts Gallery, London
When spiders unite they can tie down a lion, Daniel Raphael Gallery, London
Drawn Together, Unit London, London
No time like the present, Public Gallery, London
Guts Gallery Claps back, Guts Gallery, London
When Shit Hits The Fan, Guts Gallery, London