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Artist Megan Rooney: Painting Can't Be Easy
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Artist Megan Rooney: Painting Can't Be Easy

Art and the Evolution of Painting

The Nature of Change in Art

  • The speaker emphasizes that relying on past techniques leads to stagnation in art, as the world is constantly changing.
  • They express disbelief at how some artists can maintain the same style for decades, highlighting the need for complexity in artistic expression.

Personal Journey and Artistic Process

  • The speaker describes their lifelong engagement with creativity, particularly through painting, which provided a sense of relief and personal processing.
  • They reflect on their preference for established conversations over new ones, indicating a desire for depth and familiarity in artistic relationships.

Unique Characteristics of Their Work

  • The artist aims to transform paint into something beyond its physical properties, resulting in unique compositions that reflect individual experiences.
  • They reject formulaic approaches to painting, asserting that each piece should have distinct energy and texture.

Influence of Printmaking Techniques

  • The speaker discusses how their background in printmaking influences their painting process, emphasizing patience and complexity.
  • They describe the intricate steps involved in printmaking that require time before revealing results, which has shaped their approach to painting.

Exploration of Color Dynamics

  • The artist describes an antagonistic relationship with color, using it strategically to create tension within paintings.
  • They mix colors unconventionally to challenge traditional aesthetics and explore emotional responses elicited by different hues.

The Layering Process

Building Depth Through Layers

  • The speaker explains how unexpected outcomes during painting can lead to fascinating discoveries about color dynamics.
  • They emphasize the importance of layering colors over time to achieve nuanced effects rather than applying them directly from tubes.

Excavation Technique

  • The artist employs sanding techniques to reveal layers beneath the surface, creating depth and history within each piece.
  • Each painting evolves from previous iterations; they often contain remnants of earlier works hidden beneath layers.

Engagement with Viewers

Communication Through Art

  • Despite being silent objects, paintings must engage viewers effectively amidst short attention spans prevalent today.
  • The artist interacts with their work daily through various methods like scraping or adding elements based on intuition and experience.

Urban Influence on Creativity

  • Their work reflects urban chaos and architecture influenced by living in London; this dynamic environment shapes their artistic vision.

Conceptualizing Abstraction

Beyond Traditional Definitions

  • The speaker challenges conventional notions of abstraction by suggesting that every element within a painting relates back to human experience or bodily movement.

Evolutionary Artistic Journey

  • Reflecting on past styles ranging from hyper-realism to naive forms illustrates an ongoing evolution rather than a fixed identity as an artist.

The Complexity of Artistic Success

Navigating Challenges

  • Acknowledging years filled with failures highlights the struggle artists face while seeking authenticity in their work.

Movement as Central Theme

  • Large-scale works are created using tools like forklifts for mobility; each section must stand alone yet contribute cohesively when viewed together.

Final Thoughts on Art's Impact

Profound Connection Through Art

  • Belief in art's transformative power underscores its ability to resonate differently across diverse audiences while providing insight into complex realities.
Video description

“There’s everything in the painting for me.” For artist Megan Rooney, painting is never static. Her paintings evolve through layers of paint, sanding, and reworking, each step carrying the traces of the world outside her London studio. “The paintings contain something of the world in them.” Megan Rooney’s path to becoming an artist began as a teenager when art offered her a world that she didn’t need to explain to anyone. “I spend my life testing the limits of my relationship to colour and form,” she explains. “Paintings were always a way to sort of prove the world.” However, declaring herself “impatient by nature”, Rooney’s process is painstakingly slow. Rooney will add and subtract by sanding over months, even years. “If you try to rush the surface, you end up with something very superficial,” she says. She continues: “I really reject the idea of a formulaic painting, which is why the paintings have completely different compositions, energies, textures and colours.” When speaking of colour, Megan Rooney says: “I have an antagonistic relationship to colour. I would say that I wield colour more than I use colour. I use one colour to chase out another colour in my paintings.” The paintings in Rooney’s body of work are set in a group of families. They speak to each other, and she talks to them. Rooney resists the labels like “abstract”, insisting: “There’s everything in the painting for me. There’s skin texture, there are smile lines, there’s grimaces, there’s wounds, there’s flesh, there’s eye glances.” “I believe in art more than anything else,” Megan Rooney says, explaining how it’s saved her several times. “The world is such a complicated place to be in. I think art gives you this kind of weapon for attempting to understand some of that profundity.” Megan Rooney (b. 1985) is based in London, but grew up in South Africa, Brazil, and Canada. She completed her BA at the University of Toronto and an MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, London, in 2011. Rooney’s work has recently been shown in solo museum exhibitions at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2024); Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg (2020–21); Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto (2020); and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2019). Her performance EVERYWHERE BEEN THERE, created in collaboration with choreographer Temitope Ajose-Cutting and musician Paolo Thorsen-Nagel, premiered at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf in 2019. The year prior, she performed SUN DOWN MOON UP as part of the Serpentine Galleries’ Park Nights programme in London. Rooney’s work has also been presented in numerous group exhibitions, including at the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Florida (2024); Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2022); the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen (2021); Lyon Biennale (2019); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2019 and 2017); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2018); Venice Biennale (2017); David Roberts Art Foundation, London (2017 and 2014); and Fondation d'entreprise Galeries Lafayette, Paris (2014), among others. Megan Rooney was interviewed by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen at her studio and Thaddaeus Ropac in London, UK, in June 2025. Camera: Rasmus Quistgaard Produced and edited by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen Music by tyronneisaacstuart Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2025 Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond and Ny Carlsbergfondet. Subscribe to our channel for more videos on art: https://www.youtube.com/thelouisianachannel FOLLOW US HERE: Website: http://channel.louisiana.dk Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/louisianachannel Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LouisianaChannel