Megan Rooney

An enigmatic storyteller, Megan Rooney works across a variety of media – including painting, sculpture, installation, performance and language – to develop interwoven narratives. The body has a sustained presence in her work, both as the subjective starting point and final site for the sedimentation of experience. Painting on uniform canvases measuring 200 x 150 cm – the wingspan of the average woman – Rooney presents layered ethereal forms, often sanded back and painted over multiple times to create abstracted narratives without a discernible beginning or end. The artist’s large-scale murals, ephemeral creations that respond to the surrounding architectural space, create enveloping environments, while painterly elements seem to take on a life of their own in her performance works, with dancers moving to the scores of her prose poems. The subjects of Rooney’s works are drawn directly from her own life, and recurring motifs address the effects of politics and society in the home and on the female body, as well as obliquely referencing some of the most urgent issues of our time.

Based in London, Rooney grew up between South Africa, Brazil and Canada, completing her BA at the University of Toronto, followed by an MA in Fine Arts at Goldsmiths College, London in 2011. Her work has been shown in recent solo museum exhibitions at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2024); Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg (2020–21); Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (2020); Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2019); and Tramway, Glasgow (2017). 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 Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2022); 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); and David Roberts Art Foundation, London (2017 and 2014), among others. Her work is held in major institutional collections, including the Ackland Art Museum, North Carolina; Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Frac Île-de-France, Paris; Museum MCAN, West Jakarta; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; and Muzeul de Art? Recent?, Bucharest, among others.