Films
Breakages and Distortion
George Rouy in conversation with Ben Luke
Ahead of George Rouy’s first exhibition with Hauser & Wirth in London, Ursula presents a conversation between Rouy and writer Ben Luke at the artist’s studio in Faversham, United Kingdom, to discuss the ideas behind his new body of work and the careful process that goes into creating his imagery. At age thirty, Rouy is considered a leading voice in a new generation of painters. His work blurs the boundaries between internal and external, figure and void, past and present, phantom and reality—often suggesting a heightened or altered human existence that speaks to living in an increasingly digital contemporary world.
“I’m always thinking about how the eye navigates a work, and breakages and distortion.”—George Rouy
George Rouy, Formless being, 2024 © George Rouy. Courtesy the artist, Hannah Barry Gallery and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Damian Griffiths
Studio view, George Rouy, 2024 © George Rouy. Courtesy the artist, Hannah Barry Gallery and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Damian Griffiths
“Something I’ve been interested in recently is that of being carried. You get carried into life as a child or through birth and then you can get carried out of life and there’s this weightlessness, there’s this kind of collective support…”—Rouy
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George Rouy is a British artist whose dynamic and signature use of the human figure, vexed with desire, alienation and crisis, speaks to the extremities of our time; portraits of identity in a globalized and technologically driven 21st Century.
Ben Luke is a writer and broadcaster based in London. He is a contributing editor of The Art Newspaper, and presents its podcasts ‘A brush with…’ and ‘The Week in Art.’ Since 2009, he has been a critic at the London Evening Standard and contributed to a range of art publications. He is a regular guest on Monocle 24’s The Globalist and has appeared on numerous other radio and television shows. Ben has contributed to books on artists as diverse as Matthew Krishanu, Mark Dion, Michael Craig-Martin, George Shaw and Jiro Takamatsu.
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George Rouy’s debut solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth London, “The Bleed, Part I” opens in October 2024. The second chapter, ‘The Bleed, Part II,’ will follow at Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles in February 2025.