Echoes & Hours

And why sometimes you need to make the effort

In another week of appointments and visiting, meetings and decision making it was very tempting not to bother, especially with all that has been going on lately. So much easier to stay at home, potter about and not make the effort to go out. Yet I could also argue that with all that has been going on lately it was important to carve out some time for myself and to make that effort, so we did.

The day before I had received an email from Kettles Yard in Cambridge with information about the latest gallery exhibition ‘Echoes & Hours’, a solo exhibition by artist Megan Rooney and in particular about a free lunchtime guide to the exhibition. I had never heard of Megan Rooney before and wasn’t sure her work would be of interest but as I said, sometimes you just have to make the effort.

Megan Rooney, Up Comes Yesterday, 2024, acrylic, oil, pastel and oil stick on canvas, 199.6 x 152.3 cm

Megan Rooney was born in South Africa in 1985. She grew up in Brazil and then Canada where she studied at the University of Toronto. She moved to London where she now lives and works, taking a Masters in Fine Arts at Goldsmiths in 2011. She works in sculpture, painting, installation and poetry.

On about the hottest day of the year so far (they have been few and far between up until recently) we took the Park and Ride bus into Cambridge. I had forgotten how busy Cambridge gets in July especially on a hot and sunny day. The streets were heaving with groups of visiting foreign language students, identifiable by the ubiquitous lanyards around their necks and the river was swarming with self-hire punts inexpertly meandering along the college backs. Punt touts tried to sell us river tours as we dodged the crowds. Kettles Yard gallery was a quiet haven from the busy city.

Abstract or Seascape? My attempt at abstract art

We were early so popped into the gallery café for lunch, where we had an excellent bowl of hearty mixed salads. I can definitely recommend eating there on a visit to the gallery or the house.  At 1 o’clock a small group of us gathered and we were introduced the artist and her work as we walked around and viewed the paintings. Although I believe Megan Rooney has done figurative work in the past, the paintings for this exhibition were purely abstract. To be honest I don’t always like or understand abstract art. I don’t even know if it is supposed to be understood because most of the time I don’t really ‘get it’. I’ve seen the work of Cy Twombly, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko etc and the random mark making, splashed paint and fields of colour leave me confused which I doubt very much was the emotional response that the artists intended to evoke from the viewer. I have tried myself to splash colour around intuitively or to respond to music or poetry on the page through mark making and it tends to look like a mess of scribbled marks. Occasionally I have turned out an abstract painting that bears a passing resemblance to something that looks vaguely like a landscape but mostly it’s just not really my thing.

Abstract or Landscape? My attempt at abstract art

So as you might imagine, my expectations for the exhibition weren’t especially high but I was pleasantly surprised. In the first gallery there were seven large canvases that Rooney describes as a family. They were made specifically for the exhibition over a year long cycle of painting where she worked on them simultaneously. Although worked in colours from the same palette they each differed in colour and form dependent on the light and change in seasons as she worked.

Megan Rooney, Lean Twilight, 2024, acrylic, oil, pastel and oil stick on canvas, 199.6 x 152.3 cm

‘Her abstraction is an invitation to scrutinise up close as well as look at a distance, to observe how the colours interact and repeat, move across the surface, layers underneath inviting to viewer to stay a while… the potential of abstraction to embody the richness of the visual world’ (gallery information)

Megan Rooney, Lean Twilight, 2024, acrylic, oil, pastel and oil stick on canvas, 199.6 x 152.3 cm

Whilst I’m not entirely sure I buy into the gallery label descriptions I did love the paintings which were quite compelling, full of energy and movement. Without any literal representation they evoked the feeling of landscapes both rural and urban. And they were rich with vibrant colour. We did indeed stay a while.

The second gallery was something entirely different. For this Rooney spent three weeks painting a mural directly on to all four walls of the gallery covering the entire space, responding to the Kettle’s Yard architecture, the sounds of the city and the abundant natural light within the gallery. It is a unique temporary artwork that will be painted over once the exhibition ends, so to see it you have to visit. Rooney imagined that she would paint something warm, maybe a yellow space reflecting the change of seasons from spring into summer. But as she painted we were experiencing rain, wind and cold in what was to be especially unseasonal weather in the UK and Rooney found that what she was painting was not yellow, but blue.

“I wield colour more than I select it. Colour is radical, evasive and entirely enigmatic with a mind of its own” Megan Rooney.

The result is an immersive all-embracing experience that I loved. It felt musical in a way that makes you want to move, so it is no surprise to learn it provided a backdrop for a specially choreographed dance performance during the opening celebrations. Our guide told us that children have been to the exhibition and have spontaneously started dancing in the mural covered gallery, which is no surprise.

Which is all to say sometimes we do just need to make the effort, to get up, get dressed, go out and meet the world and in particular it’s important to do things for ourselves. And who knows we might actually be pleasantly surprised… because I was. So much so that I am looking forward to going back and seeing the exhibition again and hopefully with a grandchild or two because I’d love to see if it will make them want to move and dance. I might just join in!

The exhibition runs until 6^th October at Kettles Yard Gallery, and I can definitely recommend it should you find yourself in Cambridge over the next few months.