George Rouy. The Bleed, Part 1

About

Emerging as a leading figure of the new generation of painters, George Rouy’s debut solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth London, ‘The Bleed, Part I’ will feature a new body of work continuing his inquiry into collective mass, multiplicities and movement and human modes of existence. The second chapter, ‘The Bleed, Part II,’ will follow at Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles in February 2025. Rouy’s dynamic and signature use of the human figure, vexed with desire, alienation and crisis, speaks to the emotional extremities of our time, resulting in explorations of identity in a globalized, technologically driven 21st Century.

‘The bleed’ is an expression used by Rouy to pertain to the relationship between figure and void—or ‘the surrounds,’ as termed by the artist—and how those two realms interact and manifest on the surface of his paintings, resulting in a physical seeping, blending and merging. ‘The surrounds’ refers to the zone where flesh and inner parts of the body meet their surrounding conditions—from intensive properties of temperature, density and speed to extensive forms of mass, volume and entropy. The paintings on view not only reflect the tension present between figures and their surrounds but also the tensions and harmonies among individuals or a group.