ROBERT ROONEY
Robert Rooney’s hard-edged abstract paintings gained critical attention in the survey exhibition The Field at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1968. Unlike the formalist paintings of many of his contemporaries, Rooney’s coloured and geometric works drew from the shapes and patterns of the ephemera of his Melbourne suburban home and an ironic awareness of Pop Art. Rooney attended Swinburne Technical College, (1954-1957) and the Preston Institute of Technology in Melbourne (1972-1973).
As an avid collector of books and the mundane items of popular culture, Rooney subverted perceptions about the pious philosophies and intentions of international abstraction, using stencils cut from patterns for cut-out toys on the boxes of breakfast cereal packages and making his working process as mechanical as possible. In the early 1970s, Rooney temporarily abandoned painting, preferring to photograph and structure his imagery in formalist grid-patterns. Rooney’s fusion of abstraction and Pop Art and Conceptual Art has ensured his reputation as an important Australian artist, embracing and challenging the dictates of the ‘International Style.’
His work is held in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
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