MEGAN ROONEY

Rooney’s large-scale, gestural paintings and ephemeral murals have captivated audiences at major institutions worldwide, earning her acclaim for her ability to transform gallery spaces into living, breathing worlds.

Early Years

Born in South Africa in 1985, Megan Rooney spent her formative years in Brazil and Canada, experiences that deeply inform her approach to art and storytelling. After completing a BA at the University of Toronto, Rooney moved to London, where she earned her MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2011. She continues to live and work in London, drawing on her transnational upbringing to create works that traverse cultures and geographies.

Megan Rooney Artworks

Rooney’s contemporary art practice is defined by its tactile exploration of memory, the politics of the female body, and the transformation of everyday materials into poetic forms. Her artworks are known for their vivid use of colour, layered abstraction, and the interplay between figuration and dissolution.

Early Works and Narrative Installations

Rooney’s early exhibitions, such as Piggy Piggy (Croy Nielsen, Berlin, 2016), used speculative fictions and everyday iconography to examine gender tropes, with masked figures and domestic materials populating her installations. In Animals on the bed (Seventeen, London, 2016), her paintings extended beyond the canvas, enveloping entire rooms and establishing her signature immersive approach.

Large-Scale Murals and Theatrical Environments

Rooney’s murals, often painted directly onto gallery walls, are ephemeral and improvisational, responding to the architecture of each space. These works, such as those at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2019) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto (2020), are characterised by dynamic colour fields and gestural marks that evoke both landscape and bodily presence. Her process is slow and accumulative, with each painting or mural evolving through cycles of addition, erasure, and revision.

Performance and Collaboration

Performance is integral to Rooney’s practice. Notable works include SUN DOWN MOON UP (Serpentine Galleries, London, 2018) and EVERYWHERE BEEN THERE (Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 2019; Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, 2020), which combine choreography, music, and spoken word to animate her visual worlds.

Recent Developments

Rooney’s recent exhibitions, such as Echoes & Hours (Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, 2024), demonstrate her ongoing commitment to creating interconnected “families” of paintings, each with distinct personalities yet linked by narrative threads and a shared material vocabulary. Her works are held in major collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, and the Zabludowicz Collection, London.

Select Public Commissions, Awards and Other Accolades

• Performance: EVERYWHERE BEEN THERE, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2019), Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto (2020)
• Selected by Peter Gabriel for the cover of his single ‘And Still’ from the album i/o (2023)

Exhibitions

Megan Rooney has been the subject of both solo exhibitions and group exhibitions at important institutions. Below is a selection of important exhibitions.

Solo Exhibitions

• Echoes & Hours, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2024)
• Green, I want You Green, Salzburger Kunstverein, Austria (2020–21)
• HUSH SKY MURMUR HOLE, Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto (2020)
• Fire On The Mountain, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany (2019)
• MOMMA! MOMMA!, Tramway, Glasgow (2017)

Group Exhibitions

• Fugues in Colour, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2022)
• 15th Lyon Biennale, Lyon, France (2019)
• Paint, also known as Blood. Women, Affect, and Desire in Contemporary Painting, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2019)
• CHILDHOOD: Another banana day for the dream-fish, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2018)
• Venice Biennale, Salon Suisse, Venice (2017)

Megan Rooney FAQs

Ocula | 2025