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Paula MacArthur (b. 1967, Enfield) Recent paintings explore the symbolic and material qualities of crystal — structures that embody light, fragility and transformation. Rooted in a sustained painting practice of over three decades, MacArthur’s current work marks a concentrated shift toward still life as a site of tension between permanence and transience. Her paintings have been exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, including at the Royal Academy of Arts, and are held in public and private collections. Currently based in the UK, MacArthur is available for exhibitions and commissions. Alongside her painting practice, Paula is a mentor for Turps Art School and a Programme Tutor on the BA Painting Programme at Open College for the Arts. She is a member of the artist-led group Contemporary British Painting, she was Chair 2019 - 2023 and is currently a member of the CBP committee, responsible for organising the Contemporary British Painting Prize. Working primarily in oil, Paula MacArthur has developed a sustained painting practice over more than three decades. While earlier work encompassed a broader figurative and still life vocabulary, her recent paintings focus increasingly on crystal forms as both subject and metaphor. Crystals operate within the work as complex symbolic objects: they refract and fragment light, suggest containment and transparency, and carry associations with value, ritual and temporality. Their apparent solidity is offset by their optical instability, creating images that oscillate between clarity and dissolution. Situated within the tradition of still life, these paintings extend the genre beyond description toward a more psychological and perceptual space. Echoing the historical function of vanitas imagery, they engage with ideas of impermanence and mortality, while remaining grounded in the material and sensory qualities of paint itself. MacArthur’s work is characterised by a thoughtful balance between control and ambiguity. Surfaces are rendered with precision, yet resist full resolution, encouraging a slower, more reflective mode of viewing in which meaning is neither fixed nor singular. |
Artist Statement
"My work centres on precious stones; for me, crystals encapsulate love, life, the universe and perhaps even everything. My paintings are explorations of value and celebrations of colour and light; I see them as a contemporary memento-mori, which invite us to consider the transience of life and consider what we value most.
Crystals are beautiful and strange, I find the otherworldliness of these glassy, geometric forms endlessly fascinating. Oil paint has an equivalent magic and I layer luminous colour to create intricate landscapes and new, unreachable worlds. These are metaphors for the fragility of the planet we inhabit, the human condition, and also a recognition of the vast potential for joy in the present moment.
Encapsulated within a single object, we find our desire to accumulate treasures, tokens of love, displays of wealth and an understanding of our own and our planet's fragility. Base human instincts sit alongside our immense capacity for love.
Rather than add to the ecological devastation of mining, I work with specimens in museum collections. The act of collecting, cataloguing, curating and preserving these geological specimens for future generations adds further value and underlines their origins in the beginning of time and into eternity. The glinting light across the facets, suggested by the touch of a brush, brings focus to the comparative blip of our own existence.
Crystals form beneath the earth but it is only when they're brought into the light that their beauty is revealed. This is just one of the many tensions within each painting; the light cannot be seen without the shadows. Both literally and metaphorically; the magic of these stones is undermined by the darker associations they conjure. I stand back to observe the whole, attempting to find some resolution between conflicting states. Throughout life, we experience joy and sadness, love and loss. I hope these paintings offer the viewer a moment to pause, contemplate and find a place of peace."
Biography
Over the last twelve months she has exhibited at Irving Gallery in Oxford, Safehouse 1, APT Gallery and Thames-side Gallery in London, University of Hertfordshire, in Unquiet Landscapes curated by Joanna Whittle at Yorkshire Art Space in Sheffield and as part of Silent Disco curated by Graham Crowley in his Suffolk studio.
In 2024, Paula won Matthew Burrows’ Judge’s Choice Award at the Jackson's Art Prize with her painting ‘When nothing else remains’. In 1993 she was a prizewinner at the John Moores Painting Prize and, whilst still a student, she won the JPS Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in 1989.
Recent exhibition highlights include '& Still Different Worlds' which included works by Miranda Boulton, Martyn Cross, Sam Douglas, Kirsty Harris, Paula MacArthur and Donna McLean, and included an in conversation event with Jennifer Higgie (2025), 'Arcadia for All. Rethinking Landscape Painting Now' where her work was exhibited alongside Hurvin Anderson, Lubaina Himid, Phoebe Unwin and George Shaw. In 2023 Paula's work was part of ‘Entwined, Plants in Contemporary Painting’ touring Huddersfield Art Gallery and 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Lincolnshire.
Earlier career highlights include 'In the Future' curated by Rosalind Davis at Collyer Bristow Gallery, ‘Made in Britain’ at the National Gallery in Gdańsk, Poland, ‘Contemporary Masters from Britain’ which toured four museums in China and ‘Slippery & Amorphous' which toured London & Brooklyn. Her work was selected by Richard Deacon for the Creekside Open in 2015 and in 2011 she was took part in the curatorial project 'What the Folk Say' at Compton Verney Warwickshire alongside Peter Blake, Sonia Boyce, Jeremy Deller, Susan Hiller and Mike Nelson. In 1994 she was part of the artist residency and exhibition 'Four Self-Portrait Artists' at Walker Art Gallery Liverpool and in 1993. As a student her work was included in the Young Contemporaries (now New Contemporaries) at Whitworth Art Gallery (1989), she also won the NPG Portrait Award in 1989 and was runner-up to Peter Doig at the John Moores Painting Prize in 1993. On completing her studies at the Royal Academy Schools, her work travelled to Germany for a post-graduate exhibition at the Grassimuseum in Leipzig.
Her work is held in private and public collections around the world including National Portrait Gallery London, Priseman Seabrook Collection, Baron & Baroness von Oppenheim and Jiangsu Art Museum in China and painter, Graham Crowley, included his essay on her work ‘Still Light’ in his book ‘I Don’t Like Art’.
"My work centres on precious stones; for me, crystals encapsulate love, life, the universe and perhaps even everything. My paintings are explorations of value and celebrations of colour and light; I see them as a contemporary memento-mori, which invite us to consider the transience of life and consider what we value most.
Crystals are beautiful and strange, I find the otherworldliness of these glassy, geometric forms endlessly fascinating. Oil paint has an equivalent magic and I layer luminous colour to create intricate landscapes and new, unreachable worlds. These are metaphors for the fragility of the planet we inhabit, the human condition, and also a recognition of the vast potential for joy in the present moment.
Encapsulated within a single object, we find our desire to accumulate treasures, tokens of love, displays of wealth and an understanding of our own and our planet's fragility. Base human instincts sit alongside our immense capacity for love.
Rather than add to the ecological devastation of mining, I work with specimens in museum collections. The act of collecting, cataloguing, curating and preserving these geological specimens for future generations adds further value and underlines their origins in the beginning of time and into eternity. The glinting light across the facets, suggested by the touch of a brush, brings focus to the comparative blip of our own existence.
Crystals form beneath the earth but it is only when they're brought into the light that their beauty is revealed. This is just one of the many tensions within each painting; the light cannot be seen without the shadows. Both literally and metaphorically; the magic of these stones is undermined by the darker associations they conjure. I stand back to observe the whole, attempting to find some resolution between conflicting states. Throughout life, we experience joy and sadness, love and loss. I hope these paintings offer the viewer a moment to pause, contemplate and find a place of peace."
Biography
Over the last twelve months she has exhibited at Irving Gallery in Oxford, Safehouse 1, APT Gallery and Thames-side Gallery in London, University of Hertfordshire, in Unquiet Landscapes curated by Joanna Whittle at Yorkshire Art Space in Sheffield and as part of Silent Disco curated by Graham Crowley in his Suffolk studio.
In 2024, Paula won Matthew Burrows’ Judge’s Choice Award at the Jackson's Art Prize with her painting ‘When nothing else remains’. In 1993 she was a prizewinner at the John Moores Painting Prize and, whilst still a student, she won the JPS Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in 1989.
Recent exhibition highlights include '& Still Different Worlds' which included works by Miranda Boulton, Martyn Cross, Sam Douglas, Kirsty Harris, Paula MacArthur and Donna McLean, and included an in conversation event with Jennifer Higgie (2025), 'Arcadia for All. Rethinking Landscape Painting Now' where her work was exhibited alongside Hurvin Anderson, Lubaina Himid, Phoebe Unwin and George Shaw. In 2023 Paula's work was part of ‘Entwined, Plants in Contemporary Painting’ touring Huddersfield Art Gallery and 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Lincolnshire.
Earlier career highlights include 'In the Future' curated by Rosalind Davis at Collyer Bristow Gallery, ‘Made in Britain’ at the National Gallery in Gdańsk, Poland, ‘Contemporary Masters from Britain’ which toured four museums in China and ‘Slippery & Amorphous' which toured London & Brooklyn. Her work was selected by Richard Deacon for the Creekside Open in 2015 and in 2011 she was took part in the curatorial project 'What the Folk Say' at Compton Verney Warwickshire alongside Peter Blake, Sonia Boyce, Jeremy Deller, Susan Hiller and Mike Nelson. In 1994 she was part of the artist residency and exhibition 'Four Self-Portrait Artists' at Walker Art Gallery Liverpool and in 1993. As a student her work was included in the Young Contemporaries (now New Contemporaries) at Whitworth Art Gallery (1989), she also won the NPG Portrait Award in 1989 and was runner-up to Peter Doig at the John Moores Painting Prize in 1993. On completing her studies at the Royal Academy Schools, her work travelled to Germany for a post-graduate exhibition at the Grassimuseum in Leipzig.
Her work is held in private and public collections around the world including National Portrait Gallery London, Priseman Seabrook Collection, Baron & Baroness von Oppenheim and Jiangsu Art Museum in China and painter, Graham Crowley, included his essay on her work ‘Still Light’ in his book ‘I Don’t Like Art’.