Aura Roig
“The body is supposed to be a stable, knowable thing, but in reality, it leaks, mutates, betrays us.”
Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
My name is Aura Roig and I live in Berlin. I grew up in rural Catalonia, in the north of Spain, and graduated from the University of Barcelona in 2017 with a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts. However, I decided not to do my Master's there because it didn't feel like the right fit for me. Since then, I've moved around, I'm currently in Lisbon for a few months, escaping the Berlin winter and focusing on new work while doing a residency.
I studied fine arts but avoided painting classes, which is ironic because now I spend my days painting. Sometimes I regret it, but I also see the good side: I learned to paint on my own terms and by observing the work of artists I like.
My work, if I had to define it, I could say it's about struggles, both personal and systemic… some kind of magic realism.
The body plays a central role in your paintings, from flesh and fluids to transformations of form. What interests you about pushing the body beyond its usual boundaries, and how do you think that challenges traditional representations?
The body is supposed to be a stable, knowable thing, but in reality, it leaks, mutates, betrays us. It carries history, trauma, and expectations. I’m interested in bodies that stretch, collapse, merge with objects… I grew up surrounded by idealized beauty images, perfect, still, decorative. But those representations don’t reflect my life or the people around me. My work challenges those narrow depictions by representing them as expansive, messy, desiring, exhausted. There’s power in seeing a body that exists on its own terms. I paint hair, flesh, fluids, sex, sweat… bodies that refuse to stay in their place.
I’m interested in the political potential of feminist autobiography, in how women*’s bodies and dissident gender identities have been represented throughout history, and my work engages with the performative nature of gender.
Your work blends humor and the grotesque to explore anxiety, grief, and rejection. What draws you to this combination, and how do you see it functioning as part of a healing process?
I like to take things lightly... If I didn't laugh, I'd cry, and sometimes I do both at the same time. Humor and the grotesque let me approach heavy, painful subjects in a playful, almost ridiculous way. Life under capitalism is already absurd; exaggeration only highlights this reality. In my paintings, I take something painful and push it forward. It's funny, but it also hurts because it's real.
I am interested in the things that aren’t supposed to belong together, like beauty and discomfort, humor and sorrow, the soft and the violent. My work is sometimes about pushing those contradictions and letting them exist without needing to resolve them.
There are many things in our society that I don't understand and that make me angry. When you exaggerate suffering, make it strange, it becomes external… it loses some of its grip on you. Humor also functions as resistance.
If my work makes people laugh and then they feel uncomfortable because they're laughing, that could mean they've recognized something true in it.
I think a lot about care, emotional labor, and the absurdity of gender roles. Through painting, I explore how these expectations shape our daily lives, our relationships, and our sense of self.
One other healing potential I see in painting is a similar feeling to writing in a journal...getting all these things out there that are bothering you and feeling a little bit liberated.
The grotesque interests me because it forces you to confront what is usually hidden or dismissed. It makes things that are already there bigger, it forces you to look at them.
milk, 2024
"Tobogan", Cicle d’Art Contemporani de Reus, Centre de Lectura, 2024
Lush green grass that covers the lawn in the spring, 2024, photo Namu Shin
Hey baby, nice eyes. 2024, photo Namu Shin
Your paintings have a strong sense of surrealism and transformation. How do you approach symbolism in your work, and do you see certain recurring images as personal or more universal?
Symbolism sneaks into my work without me even realizing it. Images come from intuition, I don’t consciously plan symbols, they emerge from associations I’ve learned, things I’ve observed, and the way meanings accumulate over time. I like symbols that slip between meanings, that feel familiar but slightly off.
The vegetables, for example, are already full of rich and layered meanings, just as animals are. Tales and folklore are full of metaphores about them. I also enjoy working with symbols that have historically been used by power structures, reclaiming them and twisting them into something new.
Often, I start with one object or theme—milk, eggs, chickens—and let its meanings guide me elsewhere. But it’s not about simply giving faces to objects. It’s about bodies transforming, morphing into objects that reflect their emotional state or personal experiences. A plate of spaghetti isn’t just a plate of spaghetti, it’s my grandmother as a plate of spaghetti. It is a coment on the weight of unpaid care work.
While many of these images come from my own experiences, I think they resonate more widely because care work, exhaustion, and control are collective struggles. I believe the personal is never just personal: it’s political. What happens to us as individuals is always shaped by larger systems, and I want to bring those intimate experiences into public conversation. Even though my perspective is rooted in a specific time and context, i like to connect with others and to create a shared space for reflection.
Tell us a bit about how you spend your day / studio routine? What is your studio like?
Lately I've been changing studios quite a bit and my routine with it. But one thing I have realized is that I like to take the mornings slow at home, grab some food and go to the studio where I spend my day. The days blend together and I don't have a sense of weekdays/weekends...I guess it's more like waves of intensity and separation. Sometimes all I need to do is work, and some times I take it easier.
My studio routine is a bit boring... I listen to a lot of podcasts while I work. Right now I'm trying to improve my German "passively" by listening to a lot of German podcasts, but mostly I listen to cultural or political ones. Or I listen to reggaeton.
I work with a lot of paintings at the same time and jump from one to another. Sometimes one catches my attention and I can finish it in less than a week, but usually they sit there for a long time waiting for me to figure out what is missing, what is too much, or what they need.
But honestly, I spend most of my time sitting there, watching and thinking.
Self portrait as a beetroot, 2024
What artwork have you seen recently that has resonated with you?
Since I’m in Portugal, I’ve been trying to see as much of Paula Rego’s work as possible. Her strength, the rawness of her storytelling, and the way she captures pain, it's incredible. I was especially drawn to her Dog Women painting and drawings. I wish I could see the series she did on abortion, but I haven’t been lucky enough to come across it.
In Berlin, I was happy to see that the Neue Nationalgalerie included some works by Maria Lassnig in their collection. I love her approach to self-representation and the way she captures embodiment. And I have to admit, lately, I’ve been into Rembrandt… his use of light is just amazing in person.
I also wish I could teleport to Bilbao to see the Hilma af Klint exhibition at the Guggenheim. Her work has such a spiritual and radical energy!
Is there anything new and exciting in the pipeline you would like to tell us about?
Yes! This year, I will be part of the Goldrausch Künstlerinnen 2025 program, which is going to keep me busy and bring new opportunities. I also have a couple of group shows coming up in Berlin that I’m excited about, though they aren’t public yet.
Regarding my work, I’m still working a lot around eggs and chickens. One painting has a chicken surrounded by eggs with human man’s faces, there is an egg that is sweating, two fried eggs togeather like a marriage getting fried…. Let’s see where it goes.
All images courtesy of the artist
Interview publish date: 10/03/2025
Interview by Richard Starbuck
