J D Rooney
19 August - 26 August 2023 (Residency 02 Exhibition)
Cob Gallery, London
Installation View: J D Rooney, formed in water, Cob Award, 2023. Image Courtesy of Cob Gallery.
formed in water is the title of J D Rooney’s site-specific exhibition representing the culmination of extensive research and development as the second recipient of the Cob Award. This exhibition reflects on past and present Atlantic crossings by the Caribbean diaspora. Through a collection of imagery, sound, and found objects, the installation is shown through the artist's eyes – standing at the ocean shore, looking out towards the country of his family’s origin. The materials collected point to areas of Black study that ruminate on sound's ability to transport, and where it overlaps with our relationship to space, objects, and memory. Perhaps the residues of sound and material, left over by these crossings, allow us to escape to other lands.
Installation View: J D Rooney, formed in water, Cob Award, 2023. Image Courtesy of Cob Gallery.
J D Rooney is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in London. His practice explores the complexities regarding feelings of dislocation and reconnection from both his Guyanese and Irish heritage, and the hope for physical and cultural border crossings. His recent work has investigated the historic and ongoing extraction of resources from Guyana, and how these processes overlap with the Afrofuturism theory of Drexciya. This Drexciyan theory has introduced musical influences within his work, which considers how Black Atlantic cultures can give way to the creation of Black radical space.
J D Rooney studied Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts. Recent exhibitions include Unknown Journey, ACAVA, London , UK (2022); Regal Oriental Hotel: AVA, Hong Kong, China (2019); Departed, LOA Gallery, London, UK (2019); Letting objects speak, Set Bermondsey, London, UK (2018). Recent Residencies include Into the Wild, Chisnehale Studios, London, UK (2023); Wysing Residency, Into the Wild, London, UK (2023); Studio 13 Residency, ACAVA, London, UK (2022).
︎ Exhibition: Cob Gallery
︎ Exhibition Text: formed in water