A selection of works from Rachel Roze’s “We were in Sicily” show, Los Angeles

Previously shown at the Bruce Lurie Gallery, We Were In Sicily, Rachel Roze‘s first solo show, a selection of work from Il Pesce Pazzo. The collection of photographs taken in the summer of 2011 and shot entirely in film showcases her and friend Natalie Krims’s 40-day trip in Sicily, Italy. An enticing invitation to Roze’s Italian peregrination, her works offer stills flooded with sexuality, nationality, and the naked truth of seductive youth. Voluntarily, the viewer joins Roze in exploring the female body, men, and a culture of lust and the content. Playfully pushing the boundaries between personal and shared, Il Pesce Pazzo infiltrates the viewer into a sea of curiosity while the heat of the city, the men, and the markets, shower the voyeuristic onlooker. Layers of affection and admiration meet a hot and sticky meat-market, and with religion on every wall and the nude on every floor, Roze beautifully appropriates the rediscovery and documentation of the illicit. The onlooker can’t help but join Roze in her escapades into the grainy crevices of sex, and Sicily. Text Elena Parasco and photo Rachel Roze