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Paula MacArthur

Rye
Painter, printmaker, curator & lecturer. Studio in Rye, East Sussex, exhibiting locally, nationally & internationally.
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Paula MacArthur's paintings focus on jewels and crystals. Enlarged a thousand times these tiny stones transform into celestial entities. These paintings are a personal celebration of love and over time have come to encompass universal desires and obsessions. 

Working with viscous paint beside pools of barely tinted turps and using exaggerated intense colour the artist pushes the medium towards the extremes of its capabilities. Working quickly and instinctively MacArthur places colour onto the canvas working with wet on wet glazes, merging oily translucent layers with the brush and dropping colour, allowing it to bleed and grow into the surface. From a distance brush marks and the trails of running paint are invisible, the paintings appear cohesive, even photographic, then as the viewer approaches the images disintegrate. The paint becomes as ephemeral as the jewel's sparkle, the focus moves from the gemstone to the physicality of the paint and echoes the elusive ideals these minute treasures symbolise.

 

Now and forever until the end of time

We're all going down together

Didn't I give you nearly everything

All these silent moments

Coming home to a place we've never been

Featured in

Curated

Highlights: 1 - 6 September, 2026

By Axis

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