✿ Elisa ROSSI ✿

'Sospirandomi
sospirandoti
son qui
evanescente
tra tiepide
carezze di luce ed ombre
e tra le braccia inermi
del silenzio...
un sussurro
rifugio d'Amore...'

~ Catherine La Rose ~

Elisa Rossi was born in Venice in 1980, where she subsequently graduated from the Academy of Arts. She lives and works in Adria, Rovigo, Italy.  Rossi’s work continually returns to a single female figure, largely realised in a monochrome or muted palette.  Engaged in her beauty rituals, time stands still for Rossi’s protagonist, absorbed in preparing her body for the gaze of the outside world. Often portrayed in a bathroom - a defined space, both enclosed and private - Rossi ambivalently plays with these surroundings as both an oasis and a prison.  For Rossi, her subject’s private routines symbolise more than vanity, they are an opportunity to be alone with her thoughts, a private moment of connection between body and mind. Yet Rossi undermines the exhibitionism within her work - faces are often hidden, depicted in shadow or fall entirely outside of the image. Her subject does not have the desire to show herself to the viewer – it is clear ours is a one-way gaze - in which there can be no intimacy between audience and subject. Her work might be unveiling that which is usually hidden and private, but Rossi deftly captures that, often female, dichotomy - the possibility of being completely exposed and yet totally impenetrable.