Megan Rooney Why Contemporary Painters Are Obsessed with Dance
By Emily May
Dance and painting may seem like polar opposite art forms: One is dynamic and ephemeral, the other static and enduring. Despite this dichotomy, there’s a long history of exchange between artists of both media. Just think of Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, who worked extensively with choreographers like Trisha Brown and Merce Cunningham in the late 20th century.
Today, there’s no shortage of contemporary painters following in their footsteps, whether by finding innovative ways to capture dance’s energy in figurative and abstract forms, collaborating with choreographers, or developing their own physical practices alongside their canvas-based work. What drives this impulse?
Even painters without formal movement training see parallels between their painting processes and dance. “Over time, I’ve started to explore movement in a very broad sense and have become captivated by the simple awareness that how I moved towards the canvas impacted what came out on the surface,” said Megan Rooney, a London-based Canadian painter known for abstract canvases with gestural brushstrokes. “I do not work with preparatory sketches, so my life in the studio is made up of small performances that no one sees,” she added. This said, Rooney does also stage public performances, frequently collaborating with choreographer Temitope Ajose and dancer Leah Marojevic who develop live dance works inspired by her paintings and narratives.
