MEGAN ROONEY makes paintings, sculptures, poetry, and performance, though at present the Canadian artist’s signature works are large murals of softly bleeding colors that swim with bodily part-objects and coalescing faces. She produces these epic improvisations alone over a number of days on the blank walls of institutions and galleries. Lips and limbs materialize here and there, glimpsed in the depths of uncertain space, peeking from beneath washes of pale paint. Spidery eyes snap into focus, adorned with clumped-mascara lashes that spill wet gray streams of tears, close snoozily, or crumple gently with an injured expression. Rooney’s palette is mostly pastel and sugary throughout, signaling traditional femininity and North American suburbia—peach cobbler, baby showers—though occasional graphic streaks of grimy blackness suggest anxiety or offer comic relief. In Under the doggy
Artforum print subscribers have full access to this article. If you are a subscriber, sign in below.
Not registered for artforum.com?
SUBSCRIBE NOW for only $50 a year—65% off the newsstand price—and get the print magazine plus full online access to this issue and our archive.*
Order the PRINT EDITION of the October 2019 issue for $17 or the ONLINE EDITION for $5.99.
* This rate applies to U.S. domestic subscriptions.