Megan Rooney by Annabel Keenan An interview with the artist: Making paintings that act like families
Working in a range of disciplines including performance, installation, and painting, Megan Rooney observes the world around her, parsing politics and social conventions of home and the female body. Her abstract paintings are layered with color, which she digs into with a power sander, creating depth and pace. The process is arduous and evolves over time as the paintings sit in her studio and her attention moves from one to another. The evidence of her labor is seen in the expressionistic gestures on the canvas. At times, colors and forms seem to be fighting, as if jockeying for attention. But Rooney balances these with layers that appear calm and resolved. Although very much in charge as she builds, dissects, and rebuilds the surface, Rooney becomes a conduit, with the materials and process taking over. What emerges is full of juxtapositions and complexities—tension and resolve, disarray and order—that mirror those of life itself.
Annabel Keenan: You process specific things like politics and social conventions, but use an abstract style. Do you hope viewers take away a specific message?
Megan Rooney: If something is going to survive as art, I won’t always be standing beside it telling you what it’s about. I spend a lot of time talking to my paintings so that they will ultimately do the talking for me. The paintings are made from an acute observation of the world and my surroundings without a clear starting point for how the image might look. I invest all of my time and my body in processing the world, so my mood, my experiences that day, and whether I’m feeling agitated, downtrodden, or joyous are all on the canvas. The more complex something feels, the more complexity comes through in the work. Painting is a limited medium that I am always trying to push the boundaries of. I’m dealing with form, and color, and shape, and pace. The style of my work that has emerged took close to a decade of wrong turns, false starts, and groping for something in the dark, like trying to hit a moving target blindfolded. It always feels uncertain, unstable, and very idiosyncratic. I feel tethered to my paintings, so when they’re not going well, I feel unhinged. Maybe that sounds a bit dramatic, but it’s very intimate.
