Elsa Rouy

BIOGRAPHY

Elsa Rouy is an artist from Sittingbourne, Kent who now lives and works in London. Currently completing her BA Hons in Painting at Camberwell College of the arts. She creates artwork that takes a female gaze on sex, its anxiety and pleasure: focusing on snapshot intimate moments that become sexual between the main subject and their surroundings. She plays around with depictions of female and male genitalia, making paintings of figures with their sexual organs revealed, using these as a way to navigate anxieties that come with having, and being conscious of, a body. The paintings also denote to themes of emotional illusion and trepidation between people, highlighted through sexual intercourse. Her work focuses on bodily fluids such as semen, milk, urine, sweat and saliva and their wetness, using the imagery to focus on their involvement during sex as there are parallels between emotions when confronted with such fluids, there is a repulsion towards them when not involved in intercourse, contrary to this, during sex the same fluids that repulse us become alluring. 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 the security with a subconscious reaction of repulsion and uneasiness.