Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A multi-disciplinary conversation on how work takes shape on the page and on the canvas.
Filmed on 01/20/2026 with a live audience.
Writers and painters are both storytellers. Two of today’s most vital artists — writer Rachel Cusk and visual artist Megan Rooney — discussed mediums and methods, and explored how images and narratives take form and shape one another.
Rooney reflected on her process of creating characters for her paintings, while Cusk explored her process of questioning the limits of language and turning to image-making patterns in prose. What can be gained by bridging the gulf between words and images?
About the speakers:
Rachel Cusk is the author of Parade, Second Place, the Outline trilogy, the memoirs A Life’s Work and Aftermath, and several other works of fiction and nonfiction. She is a Guggenheim Fellow. She lives in Paris.
Megan Rooney is an enigmatic storyteller. Working across painting, installation and performance, she develops interwoven narratives within which the gestural body is a uniting thread. Her layered canvases—built through cycles of erasure and renewal—function as capsules of time and memory. Rooney’s work has been featured in solo museum exhibitions at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg; Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto; and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; in a two-person show with Joan Mitchell at the Espace Louis Vuitton, Beijing; and in group shows at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Lyon Biennale; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; and Venice Biennale.
This event was part of Ways of Seeing, a special series exploring the connections between storytelling, creativity, and the visual world.
Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.
A multi-disciplinary conversation on how work takes shape on the page and on the canvas.
Filmed on 01/20/2026 with a live audience.
Writers and painters are both storytellers. Two of today’s most vital artists — writer Rachel Cusk and visual artist Megan Rooney — discussed mediums and methods, and explored how images and narratives take form and shape one another.
Rooney reflected on her process of creating characters for her paintings, while Cusk explored her process of questioning the limits of language and turning to image-making patterns in prose. What can be gained by bridging the gulf between words and images?
About the speakers:
Rachel Cusk is the author of Parade, Second Place, the Outline trilogy, the memoirs A Life’s Work and Aftermath, and several other works of fiction and nonfiction. She is a Guggenheim Fellow. She lives in Paris.
Megan Rooney is an enigmatic storyteller. Working across painting, installation and performance, she develops interwoven narratives within which the gestural body is a uniting thread. Her layered canvases—built through cycles of erasure and renewal—function as capsules of time and memory. Rooney’s work has been featured in solo museum exhibitions at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg; Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto; and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; in a two-person show with Joan Mitchell at the Espace Louis Vuitton, Beijing; and in group shows at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Lyon Biennale; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; and Venice Biennale.
This event was part of Ways of Seeing, a special series exploring the connections between storytelling, creativity, and the visual world.
Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.
