Em Rooney

Em Rooney combines sculpture and photography in her practice, which orbits ideas of queerness, intimacy, anti-capitalism and communion. Seeing photographs as “too frail” to stand alone, Rooney works with pewter, plaster and resin amongst other texturally weighty materials to craft individual frames, or “containers” as she labels them for each work. As an antidote to the constant stream of images we encounter through advertising, social media and other streams of technology, Rooney’s work affords each photograph a sense of stillness and care not readily gifted to contemporary images. The ‘container’ for each work draws out the tonal intricacies of the original image. Languid, rippled pewter frames may heighten the vulnerability of a particular subject, or encasing the image in neon resin will amplify the vitality of another. Since 2020, Rooney has begun producing sculptures without photographic elements, expanding the material parameters of her practice. These large-scale sculptures are brought to life with a plethora of materials such as steel, velvet, linen, wax, rice paper and yarn. Rooney cites the work of Ree Morton, Elizabeth Murray and Lee Bontecou as key influences in developing this sumptuous and tactile quality in her sculptures, yet this entwinement with materiality has run as a constant throughout her practice.