Story of Blue

I imagined the mural would be very warm and yellow reflecting a change from spring to summer, as the earth heats up and the days grow longer.

It is no coincidence that my show opens on the solstice – the longest day of the year – as light conditions impact how I paint and respond to colour.

During the mural’s birth, we had a great deal of rain and wind, in keeping with what has been the wettest spring in the UK since records began. My paintings have their own unique ecosystems, they act as weathervanes or barometers holding the weight of time.

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

In the end colour rebelled, and blue chased out yellow.

My murals have a strong attachment to the ancient world and the history of mark making on walls, one of the earliest forms of storytelling that connects across generations. It is the impulse to leave a trace, to make a mark, to say I was here.

While I was working on the mural, it was announced that archaeologists had uncovered a blue room in Pompeii. This moved me and blue took hold of me.

The sheets in the hotel room are blue, the shower is blue, my feet are blue. Blue for Kettle’s Yard.

Megan Rooney