Paula MacArthur
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.
Education
2014 Turps Art School
1993 Royal Academy Schools, Post-Graduate Diploma, Fine Art Painting
1990 Loughborough College of Art and Design, BA Hons, Fine Art Painting
Awards
Jackson's Art Prize, Matthew Burrow's Judge's Choice Award
London Festival Fringe Art Award, second place
Prize winner, John Moores 18, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Royal Academy Schools Prize for painting
First Prize Winner, John Player Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery
Solo Exhibitions
2027 Unbroken Wholeness, APT Gallery, London
2022 Still Light, Rye Art Gallery, East Sussex
2018 Verse: Inverse, Obverse, Converse, Reverse,
Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope
2017 Resonance & Wonder, with songs by Tine Louise Kortermand,
Rye Creative Centre
2014 Infinitely Precious Things, VJB Arts, London
Selected Group Exhibitions
2026
Goodbye Freda, Rye Creative Centre, ast Sussex
Turps Mentor's Show, Electro Studios Project Space, St Leonards on Sea
Irving Open, Irving Gallery, Oxford
2025
Firm Foundations II, UH Arts + Culture, School of Creative Arts
University of Hertfordshire
Stranger Love, Unit 2 Gallery, St Leonards-on-Sea
The Stolen Orange, Bond Street Gallery, Brighton
Unquiet Landscapes, Yorkshire Art Space, Persistence Works, Sheffield
& Still Different Worlds, Thames-side Gallery, London
Silent Disco curated by Graham Crowley, Greystone Industries
Darkness Visible, APT Gallery, London
2024
Jackson’s Art Prize, Bankside Gallery, London
50/50, Unit 1 Gallery Workshop, London
Start with Something, featuring Louisa Chambers, Tim Ellis, Roisin
Fogarty, Alex Hanna, Gareth Kemp, Paula MacArthur, Scott
McCracken, Jason Thompson, Suzy Willey and Neil Zakiewicz,
Bridewell Studios and Gallery, Liverpool
Assembly, The Old Gym, Rye, East Sussex
The Lido Open, selected by Vincent Hawkins Lido Stores, Margate
Slow Painting: Cultural Landscapes, Studio KIND, Devon
2023
Entwined, Plants in Contemporary Painting, Huddersfield Art
Gallery touring to 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Lincolnshire
At Cross Purposes, book and touring exhibition curated by Dr
Frances Woodley, Aberystwyth University Gallery, Oriel Ynys
Môn Anglesey, QSS Gallery Belfast and Elysium Gallery, Swansea
The London Group Open 2023, Copeland Gallery, London
Of Lightness, Blyth Gallery, Imperial College London
Arcadia for all? Rethinking Landscape Painting Now,
Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds touring to
Attenborough Arts Centre, University of Leicester
Paint Fiction, International Gallery of Contemporary Art,
Anchorage, Alaska, USA
X, Ten Years of Contemporary British Painting, Newcastle
Contemporary Art, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
Rogue Women 2, Rogue Artists’ Studios, Manchester
Embracement, Tin Man Art for International Women's Day
2022
Winter Lights, Tin Man Art
Love, Celebration and the Road Ahead curated by Hettie Judah,
TJ Boulting, London
Once Upon an Instant, HTW, Berlin
A Generous Space 2, The New Art Gallery Walsall
Vitalistic Fantasies, Elysium Gallery, Swansea
Paradoxes, Quay Arts, Ryde, Isle of Wight
2021
A Generous Space, Hastings Contemporary
Roadside Picnic, PADA Gallery, Barreiro, Lisbon, Portugal
Supernature, Kaleidoscope Gallery, Sevenoaks
Human:Nature, Linden Hall Studio, Deal, Kent
Margins curated by Matthew Burrows MBE, Rye, East Sussex
2020
Lockdown Interviews, The Cello Factory, London
Vitalistic Fantasies, The Cello Factory, London
Wells Art Contemporary, online exhibition
Beep Painting Prize, Elysium Gallery, Swansea
2019
A Hand Stuffed Mattress curated by Karl Bielik, Terrace
Gallery, London
Supernature, The Auxiliary Project Space, Middlesbrough
Mountain Size curated by Gordon Dalton, Pineapple Black,
Middlesbrough
Indoor Voices curated by Graham Crowley, Greystone Industries
Made in Britain, National Museum, Gdańsk, Poland
Contemporary British Painting, The Hostry, Norwich
Im/material Bodies, Sluice HQ, London
2018
PaintLounge Berlin, Kühlhaus, Berlin
Subsumed, curated by Fiona Long, The Crypt, London
In the Future, curated by Rosalind Davis, Collyer Bristow, London
Beep Painting Prize, Swansea College of Art
Superstition, Project Space Wapping, London
PaintNorth, Lady Beck Project Space, Leeds
Five Sussex Artists, Devonshire Collective, Eastbourne
2017
Contemporary Masters from Britain, The Yantai Art Museum, Jiangsu Arts and Crafts Museum, Jiangsu Art Museum and Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Museum
Contemporary British Painting, Bermondsey Project Space
Contemporary Masters from the East of England, The Cut,
Halesworth
2016
Slippery & Amorphous NYC, ArtHelix, Brooklyn, NYC
Contemporary British Painting, Quay Arts, Ryde, Isle of Wight
Slippery & Amorphous, The Crypt, London
Correspond, The Artworks, Halifax touring to Rye Creative
Centre, East Sussex and Interview Room 11, Edinburgh
2015
Right Here, Right Now, Rye Studio, East Sussex, Hermione
Allsopp, Andrzej Jackowski, Chantal Joffe, Paula MacArthur
Undead Painters, ASC Gallery, London
Adam Fenton’s Painting Club, Thames-side Gallery, Woolwich
Creekside Open, APT Gallery, London, selected by Richard
Deacon
Disturbance, Atom Gallery, Stroud Green Road, London
Cold on the Outside, Willowbank Crescent, Glasgow
2014
Q14, APT Gallery, Deptford, London
OVERHE(a)R(e), Aplomb Gallery, Chicago, USA
Le Voci Ritrovate, Castello di Monti, Corigliano d’Otranto, Italy
Zeitgeist Open, ASC Studios, London, selected by Rosalind Davis,
Annabel Tilley, Andrew Bick & Juan Bolivar Correspond, curated by Marcus Harvey, Turps Art School, London
Off the Wall, The 9th Terrace Annual Open, London
Zeitgeist Summer Exhibition, Zeitgeist Arts Projects, London
20 Painters, Phoenix, Brighton
Crash Open Salon, Charlie Dutton Gallery, London, selected by
Phillip Allen and Neil Tait
2013
Lion and Lamb Gallery at Sluice Art Fair, Bermondsey, London
The Open West, Newark Park Gloucestershire touring to Cheltenham Art Gallery
The Femail Project, The Article Gallery, Birmingham City University
Navigate, Bexhill Art Trail supported by the De La Warr Pavilion, The Old Cinema, Bexhill
Covert and Obscured, Frances Bardsley Gallery, Romford
Tasty Modern, Schwartz Gallery, London
2012
Seeing in the Dark, The Fletcher Centre, Rye, East Sussex
Minutiae, The Stone Space, London
ALAS, Autumn Residency Exhibition, Matt Roberts Arts, London
The Perfect Nude, Wimbledon Space touring to Exeter Phoenix
Gallery & Charlie Smith London, curated by Philip Allen and Dan
Coombs
2011
What the Folk Say, curatorial interventions by Tasha Amini,
James Ayres, Daniel Baker, Sir Peter Blake, Sonia Boyce, Faye
Claridge, Simon Costin, Jeremy Deller, Susan Hiller, Juneau
Projects, Alan Kane, Paula MacArthur, Mike Nelson, Martin
Myrone, Paul Ryan & Sarah Woodfine, Compton Verney,
Warwickshire
Surface Meaning, House of Hastings, East Sussex
2010
A Thousand Words; an installation for Art in Romney Marsh, London Festival Fringe Art Award, 2nd prize winner
2005
Ahoy Kunst, Rotterdam, Netherlands
1994
Four Self Portrait Artists, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
1993
Prize winner, John Moores Painting Prize, Walker Art Gallery,
Liverpool
Royal Academy Post-Graduates, Grassimuseum, Leipzig,
Germany
1991-3
Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, London
1989
Young Contemporaries (now New Contemporaries) Whitworth
Art Gallery, Manchester
First Prize Winner, John Player Portrait Award, National Portrait
Gallery, London
Publications
2023
Arcadia for All? Rethinking Landscape Painting Now
X, Ten Years of Contemporary British Painting, 2023
At Cross Purposes, introduction by Dr Frances Woodley and foreword by Bedwyr Williams
2022
Entwined, Plants in Contemporary Painting, Paint Edgy
2021
Darkness at Noon
2019
Made in Britain, National Museum, Gdańsk, Poland, exhibition catalogue
Contemporary Masters of Britain
2016
Slippery & Amorphous NYC, Slippery & Amorphous London
Correspond 2016 catalogue
Contemporary British Painting Summer Exhibition
2015
I don’t like art, selected essays by Graham Crowley, 2015
Infinitely Precious Things
2014
Correspond exhibition catalogue
2013
The Open West 2013, exhibition catalogue
Pushing Print Festival
2012 exhibition catalogue
What the Folk Say exhibition catalogue, Compton Verney
The Importance of Sequences, Clinical Chemist, Marek H Dominiczak
Self, compiled by Craig Kerrecoe
1993
John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 18, National Merseyside Galleries and Museum
Royal Academy Schools student exhibition, introduction by Norman Rosenthal
Painting Today, Bonhams, foreword by Nicholas Usherwood
1990
Ten years of the John Player Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery
Selected Collections
Jiangsu Museum of Art, China
Goodnestone Park, Kent
Priseman Seabrook Collection
Chadwicks, UEA Campus, Norwich
National Portrait Gallery, London
Baron and Baroness von Oppenheim
Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors
Loughborough Grammar School
Ted Baker London
Hilton Double Tree Hotel, Park Lane
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