Elsa Rouy (b. 2000, Sittingbourne, UK) creates semi-autobiographical paintings that use the human figure as a means of dissolving boundaries and exploring the many facets of personhood. Her protagonists often occupy an uneasy space between suffering and pleasure, appearing in compositions that interrogate themes of femininity, control, destruction, desolation, transformation and catharsis. Through these figures, Rouy examines the anxieties of inhabiting, and being intensely conscious of, one’s own body, while exploring the dynamics of both societal and internal power structures and the fluid nature of identity and existence.

Her solo exhibitions include a presentation at the Museum Elektrownia in Radom, Poland (2026); Sleeping Beauties at Patricia Low Contemporary, Venice (2025); I Pictured Skin at GNYP Gallery, Berlin (2025); A Screaming Object at Guts Gallery, London (2024); Ephialtes at GNYP Gallery, Antwerp (2024); The Only Daughter at Steve Turner, Los Angeles (2023); and a series of solo exhibitions with Guts Gallery in London, including I Could Always Crack a Joke (2022), A Demon in a Sundress (2021) and Plastic Doesn’t Sweat (2020).

Rouy’s work has also been presented in numerous group exhibitions, including HIGH FIVE at Eigen + Art, Leipzig (2025); The Cloak of Dreams at SWCAC, Shenzhen (2025); Mary With(out) Child at GNYP Gallery, Antwerp (2024); The Body Electric at Larsen Warner, Stockholm (2024); Aperitif at Palazzo Monti, Brescia (2024); and a growing number of international exhibitions that reflect her rising presence within the contemporary art scene.