MEGAN ROONEY AT KETTLES YARD
Sowing Sky
Monet came instantly to mind as I first gazed on Megan Rooney’s ‘Flashed On’. . Her work shares more than his seductive link to Nature, so hard to convey, so easy to see. A frenzy of technique lies behind the serenity of these remarkable paintings . Megan shares Monet’s ambition of scale, his drive and dedication – with a determination to press on . Orginally from South Africa, 38 year old Megan grew up in Canada, where conformity was the watchword. She recalls how her mother , an artist herself, reacted to the samey grey house they moved into
“ She got out there and painted it the brightest possibly orange you could think of”
Did she care about criticism? What do you think? Megan has the same contrarian explosive drive. The seven allied paintings in the main gallery at Kettles Yard show much much skill and commitment they absorb. Not all. ““You have to be so careful with red, redolent of anger blood and fire’ murmured my artist companion as we gazed at The Way you Move ( Megan is a dancer) - the latest King Charles portrait discovered this in the Yeo offering where Charles‘ head appears as a disconnected Banquo’s ghost over the canvas.
Megan is much better than this. Her other paintings are beautiful to behold and glow with gorgeous colour in every case. If they weren’t so large, you would love to walk home with any one.
Was the entire room of Echoes and Hours, an Installation until October, a daring experiment or a Bridge too Far? The complex blues below the final swirls of a worrying flesh colour are interesting, but this overlay in what one visitor described as a ‘vile’ pink, shifts from movement into a melée .‘I wield colour more than I select it. Colour is radical, evasive and entirely enigmatic, with a mind of its own’ the artist declares It has certainly taken on a life of its own in the Echoes and Hours, but will doubtless act as a brilliant backdrop to the dance performance promised for half an hour on 6th October at 2.30p.m.But as an Installation , I wonder.
Talk about art, and it is easy to flounder. Especially when ithe art is abstract, when the shapes blur, the colours collide and the entire painting defies definition. The Installation title, ( finished in only 18 days in June) for instance, hardly gets us any further and to say the works ‘embody the richness of the visual world’ is what we hope of any painting.
But the main event occupies another level Didn’t we all assume abstract art had quietly slipped away ? Which makes Megan Rooney’s ‘family’ of seven large oil or acrylic creations such a tremendous surprise. Set aside the implied symbolism of their width only the span of her arms), this group of painting is a feat of energy – with sometimes spectacular results. Acrylic , oil pastel and oil stick on canvas combine to make some delightful adventurous impressive and memorable results.
A vibrant uplifting show worth a visit.
Up Comes Yesterday
On the Silver Minute
Lean Twilight
Flashed On
The Way you Move
