{"id":1989523,"date":"2025-08-31T11:02:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T11:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1989523"},"modified":"2025-08-31T11:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T11:02:07","slug":"artist-megan-rooney-painting-cant-be-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/artist-megan-rooney-painting-cant-be-easy\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist Megan Rooney: Painting Can&#8217;t Be Easy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  width=\"580\" height=\"385\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Wu7PRmrOClQ?autoplay=1&#038;modestbranding=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<br \/>\u201cThere\u2019s everything in the painting for me.\u201d 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. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe paintings contain something of the world in them.\u201d Megan Rooney\u2019s path to becoming an artist began as a teenager when art offered her a world that she didn\u2019t need to explain to anyone.  \u201cI spend my life testing the limits of my relationship to colour and form,\u201d she explains. \u201cPaintings were always a way to sort of prove the world.\u201d However, declaring herself \u201cimpatient by nature\u201d, Rooney\u2019s process is painstakingly slow. Rooney will add and subtract by sanding over months, even years. \u201cIf you try to rush the surface, you end up with something very superficial,\u201d she says. She continues: \u201cI really reject the idea of a formulaic painting, which is why the paintings have completely different compositions, energies, textures and colours.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When speaking of colour, Megan Rooney says: \u201cI 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.\u201d The paintings in Rooney\u2019s 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 \u201cabstract\u201d, insisting: \u201cThere\u2019s everything in the painting for me. There\u2019s skin texture, there are smile lines, there\u2019s grimaces, there\u2019s wounds, there\u2019s flesh, there\u2019s eye glances.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe in art more than anything else,\u201d Megan Rooney says, explaining how it\u2019s saved her several times. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s work has recently been shown in solo museum exhibitions at Kettle\u2019s Yard, Cambridge (2024); Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg (2020\u201321); Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto (2020); and Kunsthalle D\u00fcsseldorf (2019). Her performance EVERYWHERE BEEN THERE, created in collaboration with choreographer Temitope Ajose-Cutting and musician Paolo Thorsen-Nagel, premiered at the Kunsthalle D\u00fcsseldorf in 2019. The year prior, she performed SUN DOWN MOON UP as part of the Serpentine Galleries\u2019 Park Nights programme in London. Rooney\u2019s 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 f\u00fcr 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&#8217;entreprise Galeries Lafayette, Paris (2014), among others.<\/p>\n<p>Megan Rooney was interviewed by Roxanne Bagheshirin L\u00e6rkesen at her studio and Thaddaeus Ropac in London, UK, in June 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Camera: Rasmus Quistgaard<br \/>\nProduced and edited by Roxanne Bagheshirin L\u00e6rkesen<br \/>\nMusic by tyronneisaacstuart<br \/>\nCopyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2025<br \/>\nLouisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. M\u00f8llerske St\u00f8ttefond and Ny Carlsbergfondet.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our channel for more videos on art: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/thelouisianachannel<\/p>\n<p>FOLLOW US HERE:<br \/>\nWebsite: http:\/\/channel.louisiana.dk<br \/>\nInstagram: http:\/\/www.instagram.com\/louisianachannel<br \/>\nFacebook: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LouisianaChannel<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Wu7PRmrOClQ\">Video Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThere\u2019s everything in the painting for me.\u201d 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. \u201cThe paintings contain something of the world in them.\u201d Megan Rooney\u2019s path to becoming an artist began as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1989524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1989523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videos"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1756638125_maxresdefault.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1989523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1989524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1989523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1989523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1989523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}