Paris
Thresholds of Being: In the Wake of the Self
From 3rd to 30th of July 2025
The works of Alfie Rouy and Giulnara Fatullaeva come together in a deeply sensorial encounter that traverses the thresholds between spiritual cosmology and interior psychic experience. Though their visual languages differ, both artists engage painting as a transformative act, a conduit for shifting between states of consciousness, of body, of being.
Alfie Rouy’ s work, with its expressive gestures and spirit-filled images, enters into conversation with the mystical modernism of the early 20th century, especially with the works of Hilma af Klint and Emma Kunz, who saw in painting the path to spiritual states. His use of automatic drawing refers to surrealist automatism, for example, to the works of André Masson, but Rouy shifts the focus from the Freudian unconscious towards cosmic themes, which echoes the Theosophical motifs in the paintings of Hilma af Klint, created for the temple.
Rouy’s works are perceived as energy fields rather than narrative images: the form is constantly changing, in motion, pulsating with symbolic colors and spiritual energy. The viewer does not analyze the picture, but resonates with it, like a mantra or a certain frequency. His canvases encourage us to abandon the usual view and rebuild our perception.
In contrast, Gulnara Fatullaeva turns toward the psychological and the personal, using figuration to explore themes of dissociation, trauma, and emotional fragmentation. Her figures often ghostlike or disembodied recall the expressive intensity of Edvard Munch, where the human form becomes a vehicle for existential unease. Fatullaeva also engages art history directly, referencing painters such as Delacroix, Courbet, and Watteau. These hommages are not merely stylistic, but conceptual: she disrupts and recontextualizes canonical imagery through a postmodern lens.
Her recent project, Les mondes parallèles, delves deeply into the mechanisms of psychological dissociation. Through fragmented bodies and distorted self-images, Fatullaeva stages the sense of detachment from reality, echoing the lasting imprints of childhood trauma. Her work often blurs the boundary between the corporeal and the ethereal, portraying isolation, compression, and suspension in mirrored, dreamlike spaces. In these works, the viewer is invited not just to witness dissociation, but to feel its silent agitation—its fragile balance between presence and absence.
Together, Rouy and Fatullaeva offer two powerful responses to the instability of contemporary consciousness: one turning outward to the cosmic and spiritual, the other inward to the psychological and embodied. Where Rouy’s forms invite meditation, Fatullaeva’s evoke empathy. Their practices though distinct share a belief in painting as a site of transformation.
Meet GIULNARA
Giulnara Fatullaeva
Giulnara Fatullaeva, born in 1990 in Abakan (Russia), is a multidisciplinary artist with a strong focus on oil painting. She began her artistic training in high school and went on to earn a master’s degree from the Department of Design and Styling at the University of Technology and Design in Saint Petersburg in 2012. This led to an exchange program at ENSAIT (École Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Industries Textiles) in Roubaix, France. She later completed her studies at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art) in Moscow, after which she moved to Paris in 2018, where she has continued her artistic practice ever since. Giulnara has participated in several group exhibitions around the world, including at the Elektrozavod Gallery in Moscow in 2018, Artexpo in New York (USA) in 2020, and Art Brussels 2022 in Brussels (Belgium).
Meet ALFIE
Alfie Rouy
Alfie Rouy (b. Sittingbourne, UK) is a London-based artist who studied Painting at Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London (2019–2021), and previously at the University for the Creative Arts, Rochester (2015–2017). His recent solo exhibitions include Space In Between at Duarte Sequeira Seoul (2023) and A Fingers Click of Time with The Artist Contemporary (2021). He has participated in numerous group shows such as NEW NOW at Guts Gallery, Chasing Elsewhere at Fiumano Clase, London Calling at Unit London, Metamorphosis at Duarte Sequeira Seoul, and The Artist is Present at Guts Gallery. Rouy’s work has also featured in exhibitions at Studio West, Brooke-Benington, Hannah Barry Gallery, Marlborough Gallery, and Changing Room Gallery, among others, across London and internationally.
Rouy and Fatullaeva each explore the outer edges of consciousness — between cosmos and psyche, meditation and memory. Two visions, one shared pursuit of transformation.
Roberto - Gallery Director @ Robegago
