It has been a superb yr for British painter George Rouy, who, in 2024, grew to become one of many youngest artists to affix Hauser & Wirth, in a illustration introduced in collaboration with Hannah Barry Gallery.
Initially from Kent, he gained a spot in 2012 to check portray at Camberwell School of Arts. ‘Once I was at artwork faculty, portray wasn’t as fashionable as it’s now, however it’s had a resurgence,’ says Rouy. ‘On the time, it felt prefer it wasn’t the cool factor to do, however I went by way of the method through the years, attempting to seek for what figuration in artwork meant.’
After graduating in 2015, he was impressed by French, Dutch and medieval work in his early figurative works for group exhibits. A daring, extra confrontational portrait fashion quickly gave approach to a deeper focus in how the paint was utilized to the canvas, with Rouy’s thick, instinctive brush strokes lending a considerate and expressive edge to his course of. It led him naturally to the extra summary fashion we see right this moment, with the figures in his work captured in a state of distorted awakening, as if from a fever dream, a mode that has invited comparisons with Francis Bacon. Now not portraits, or particular figures, they’re now recollections of them.
Carry Me, 2024, by George Rouy
(Picture credit score: Benedict Brink)
Rouy traces this fascination with the determine again to his 2023 solo exhibition at Hannah Barry Gallery, when he collaborated with choreographer Sharon Eyal on a dwell occasion. ‘It was a turning level once I noticed Sharon Eyal’s work,’ says Rouy. ‘It was an enormous second for the way I modified my perspective on the best way I wished to strategy the determine. Once you see her work, it’s very intuitive, closely emotive, however it’s additionally extremely minimal and centered on the physique and interactions as a mass – on a bunch of figures but in addition on them individually. I walked away from that desirous to erase the muddle and sharpen my concentrate on the physique, and on what meaning inside portray.’
Rouy subsequent to his portray Flash Thought, 2024
(Picture credit score: Benedict Brink)
‘I eliminated the face as a result of it was turning into an excessive amount of. With out it, you may assess the entire portray with out that focus’
George Rouy
Rouy’s debut present for Hauser & Wirth, ‘The Bleed, Half I’ (at present on in London, with a Half II to comply with in LA in February 2025) builds on this exploration of the figurative. Right here, the human kind is distorted, faceless, typically misplaced in a mass of writhing figures in a recent reimagining of Nineteenth-century classical tragedy work.
‘There was a transparent shift 4 or 5 years in the past, the place I’d at all times thought in regards to the determine, however then my focus grew to become very a lot on the physique, and the interactions of the mass of figures and multiples,’ says Rouy, who rejects the thought of the physique in static isolation, as a substitute depicting it as continuously in flux, in a relationship with each its personal limitations and with a mass of different our bodies. ‘You then have this anatomy that’s immediately transferred into the work by way of gesture, but in addition into the representations of figures as properly.’
In distinction to lots of his contemporaries, Rouy eschews conventional markers of id to zoom in, as a substitute, on a extra common expertise. With no faces or genitals, there’s nowhere to anchor the attention; we’re due to this fact invited to gaze, unheeded, throughout a blurring of motion, color and texture. ‘I eliminated the face as a result of it was turning into an excessive amount of,’ he provides. ‘With out it, you may assess the entire portray with out that focus. I wished to permit the viewer to deal with each facet of the portray with the identical worth, and I’m very strict on that. Each half has to have function, there’s no filler as such. Eradicating the face permits your eye to take a look at the our bodies, after which the fingers and toes turn into much more of a characteristic and have much more of a function, and people issues get drawn out greater than they might once you had the face.’
Phantom, 2024, by George Rouy
(Picture credit score: Benedict Brink)
Within the present, we see hints of what’s subsequent for Rouy. Amongst his bruised palettes of colors, there are, for the primary time, some monochrome works, which he refers to as his phantom work. ‘I’ve been desirous to do monochrome works for some time, and so they haven’t been profitable till this latest physique of labor. I modified my strategy, and began to consider illumination and darkness. By utilizing silver-primed canvas or linen, it offers a backlit really feel, however I used to be utilizing charcoal powder, which sucks and diffuses the sunshine. At first I labored with these two parts, however as time went on, it grew to become a bit extra subtle, and it creates a depth when there’s so many layers, which a few of the oil work don’t have.’
The visceral outcomes turn into a fluid jumble of life, which seem to drip and bleed their method throughout the canvas, therefore the exhibition’s title. ‘There’s this concept of a leakage, or a bleeding out, but in addition, it’s how properly our our bodies are interacting with the house round us. Inside the work, there’s that dissipation, within the surrounding areas of the our bodies and the way they mix into one another. It’s vital to say that, with the blood, there’s the thought of a life pressure, however these are depictions of mortal people. They don’t seem to be something bigger. They’re simply as fragile and simply as flawed as all of us are.’
‘George Rouy. The Bleed, Half I’ is on present till 21 December 2024 at Hauser & Wirth London. ‘George Rouy. The Bleed, Half II’ is on present from 19 February-1 June 2025 at Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles
hauserwirth.com
A model of this text seems within the January 2025 problem of Wallpaper* , accessible in print on worldwide newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple Information +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* right this moment
(Picture credit score: Benedict Brink)
Supply: Wallpaper
