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..Paula MacArthur is a painter, she trained at the Royal Academy & Turps Art Schools and was a John Moores Painting Prize winner in 1993. She exhibits nationally and internationally and works from her studio in Rye, East Sussex. Alongside her studio practice, Paula is a BA Painting Programme Tutor at OCA, a mentor on the Turps Hastings Off-Site Programme, the Contemporary British Painting Prize Coordinator and a committee member of the artist-led group Contemporary British Painting.
Paula was a prizewinner at John Moore’s Painting Prize in 1993 and first prize winner at the National Portrait Gallery Portrait Award in 1989. Other career highlights include 'Arcadia for All. Rethinking Landscape Painting Now' is on show until 28 January 2024 at Attenborough Arts Centre, University of Leicester where her work is exhibited alongside Hurvin Anderson, Lubaina Himid, Elizabeth McGill and George Shaw amongst others. Earlier this year Paula's work was part of ‘Entwined, Plants in Contemporary Painting’ touring to Huddersfield Art Gallery and 2021 Visual Arts Centre, Lincolnshire, in 2019 she exhibited in Poland at Made in Britain - National Museum Gdansk, and in 2018 'In the Future' curated by Rosalind Davis at Collyer Bristow Gallery in London. In 2017 her work was included in Contemporary Masters from Britain touring four museums in China and in 2016 'Slippery & Amorphous' toured from London to Brooklyn NYC. Her work was selected by Richard Deacon for the Creekside Open in 2015 and in 2011 she was included 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 on completing her studies at the Royal Academy Schools her work travelled to Germany for a post-graduate show at the Grassimuseum Leipzig. Whilst a degree student she was included in the Young Contemporaries - Whitworth Art Gallery (1989). Permanent collections include the 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’. |
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The focus of Paula MacArthur’s work is crystals and jewels, these are explorations of colour and light, a contemporary response to Dutch 17th century Pronkstilleven painting - ostentatious still life. Solitary, precious stones are captured in the spotlight, displayed as icons which lure us in and quietly invite us to investigate the multifaceted associations we bring to these treasures.
She selects mineral specimens instinctively, choosing the examples which really thrill. Through the slow, meditative process of painting, these valuable objects reveal themselves to her and she begins to delve into her subconscious and understand how they resonate with her personally. The resulting paintings also resonate more universally; touching upon issues such as materialism, capitalism, feminism and the environment, and broader themes which concern us all, love, beauty and the ephemerality of life.
The crystal series was started in 2019 and developed during lockdown. The glowing forms of the quartz crystal in ‘All these silent moments’ describes an extremely slow growing mineral but it reminds us of both a small, momentary splash in a pool and a vast, exploding supernova. ‘Didn’t I give you nearly everything’ describes thin, fragile gypsum filaments as they expand into a solid yet extremely delicate heart shaped form. Both canvases were painted slowly and carefully in very thin glazes during lockdown, MacArthur’s approach changed subtly to reflect the collective feeling of anxiety arising from the pandemic. The crystal forms are beautiful and strange; emerging from the painted void they seem suddenly to mimic the alien appearance of a virus and become both ominous and beautiful. Within a single object our desire to accumulate treasures as tokens of love and displays of wealth is contrasted with the knowledge of our own fragility and ultimate demise.
Education
1993 Royal Academy Schools, Post-Graduate Diploma, Fine Art Painting
1990 Loughborough College of Art and Design, BA Hons, Fine Art Painting
Solo exhibitions
2022 Still Light, Rye Art Gallery, East Sussex
2018 Verse: Inverse, obverse, converse, reverse, Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope Gallery
2017 Resonance & wonder, with songs by Tine Louise Kortermand, Rye Creative Centre
2014 Infinitely Precious Things, VJB Arts at 60 Threadneedle Street, London
Current and forthcoming exhibitions
2023 Arcadia for all? Rethinking landscape painting now, Attenborough Arts Centre, University of Leicester until 28 January 2024
2023 The London Group Open 2023, Copeland Gallery, 133 Rye Lane, London SE15 3SN until 26 November 2023
2023 Abundance, Rye Art Gallery, private view from 11am on Saturday 18 November, continues until Sunday 14 January 2024
2023 At Cross Purposes, book & touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, Elysium Gallery, Swansea 11 November - 23 December
Selected group exhibitions
2023 Of Lightness, Hermione Allsopp, Clare Chapman, Paula MacArthur & Perdita Sinclair, Blyth Gallery, Imperial College London
2023 Art on a Postcard, exhibition and online auction, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne
2023 At Cross Purposes, book & touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, QSS Studios Gallery, Belfast
2023 New Road Artists Autumn Exhibition, Rye Creative Centre, East Sussex
2023 The Art Car Boot Fair Goes Pop, online
2023 Open Studios, Rye Creative Centre, East Sussex
2023 Goddesses on Sea, Lido Stores, Margate
2023 Paint Fiction, International Gallery of Contemporary Art, Anchorage, Alaska, USA
2023 Arcadia for all? Rethinking landscape painting now, Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds
2023 X - Contemporary British Painting, Newcastle Contemporary Art, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
2023 At Cross Purposes, book and touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, Oriel Ynys Môn, Anglesey
2023 Rogue Women 2, Rogue Artists’ Studios, Manchester
2023 At Cross Purposes, book and touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, Aberystwyth University Museum Gallery
2023 Goddesses: A Love Explosion, Terrace Gallery, London
2023 This Year's Model, Studio 1.1, London
2023 Embracement, online exhibition at Tin Man Art for International Women's Day
2022-3 Entwined, Huddersfield Art Gallery, then touring to 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe until 27 May 2023
2022 Winter Lights, an online exhibition at Tin Man Art
2022 Love, Celebration and the Road Ahead curated by Hettie Judah, TJ Boulting, London
2022 Once Upon an Instant, HTW Berlin
2022 Variations, Rye Creative Centre
2022 A Generous Space 2, The New Art Gallery Walsall
2022 Vitalistic Fantasies, Elysium Gallery, Swansea
2022 Paradoxes, Quay Arts, Ryde, Isle of Wight
2021 A Generous Space, Hastings Contemporary
2021 Supernature, Kaleidoscope Gallery, Sevenoaks
2021 Human:Nature, Linden Hall Studio, Deal, Kent
2021 Margins curated by Matthew Burrows MBE
2021 This Year's Model, Studio 1.1, London
2020 Lockdown Interviews exhibition, The Cello Factory, London
2020 Vitalistic Fantasies, The Cello Factory, London
2020 Wells Art Contemporary, online exhibition
2020 Beep Painting Prize, Elysium Gallery, Swansea
2020 Yes/No, an online open studio exhibition by 31 members of the artist led group, Contemporary British Painting
2019 A Hand Stuffed Mattress curated by Karl Bielik, Terrace Gallery, London
2019 Supernature curated by PaintLounge, The Auxiliary Project Space, Middlesbrough
2019 Mountain Size curated by Gordon Dalton, Pineapple Black, Middlesbrough
2019 Indoor Voices curated by Graham Crowley, Greystone Industries, Wickham Market, Suffolk
2019 Made in Britain, National Museum, Gdańsk, Poland
2019 Contemporary British Painting, The Hostry, Norwich
2019 Im/material bodies, Sluice HQ touring to Rye Creative Centre
2018 New Painting, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London
2018 PaintLounge Berlin, Kühlhaus, Berlin
2018 Subsumed, curated by Fiona Long, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London
2018 In the Future, curated by Rosalind Davis, Collyer Bristow Gallery Click here for the press release.
2018 Beep Painting Prize, Swansea College of Art
2018 Superstition, Project Space Wapping, London
2018 PaintNorth, Lady Beck Project Space, Leeds
2018 Devonshire Collective, Eastbourne, five Sussex artists: Izabela Brudkiewicz, Nikki Davidson Bowman, Jane King, Paua MacArthur & April Yasamee
2018 Testcard P, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London, NW1 5LT
2017 Contemporary Masters from Britain, 80 works selected from the Priseman Seabrook Collection of 21st Century British Painting
The Yantai Art Museum, Jiangsu Arts and Crafts Museum, Jiangsu Art Museum, and Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Museum
Buy Exhibition Catalogue Here
2017 Summer Salon, Lubomirov Angus-Hughes, London
2017 Contemporary Masters from Britain, The Yantai Art Museum , Yantai, China
2017 Highly Inflammable, The Crypt, St Mary in the Castle, Hastings
2017 On the other side, recent works by New Road Artists, Rye Art Gallery
2017 Contemporary British Painting Summer Exhibition, Art Bermondsey Project Space
2017 Contemporary Masters from the East of England: 35 Painters from the East of England, The Cut, Halesworth, 25 April - 27 May
2017 30x30x34, Contemporary British Painting Winter Exhibition, The Crypt, St Marylebone Church, London
2016 Slippery & Amorphous NYC, Sluice Exchange Rates International Exposition, ArtHelix, Brooklyn, NYC, downloadable catalogue here
2016 Contemporary British Painting Summer Exhibition, Quay Arts, Ryde, Isle of Wight
2016 Slippery & Amorphous The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London download catalogue
2016 Correspond, The Artworks, 1830 Building, Shaw Lane, Halifax
touring to Rye Creative Centre, East Sussex and Interview Room 11, Edinburgh
2016 This Year's Model, Studio 1.1, Shoreditch, London
2015 Right Here, Right Now, Rye Studio, East Sussex, Hermione Allsopp, Andrzej Jackowski, Chantal Joffe, Paula MacArthur, Dave McKean
2015 Undead Painters, ASC Gallery, New Cross Gate, London, curated by Alastair Gordon and James Petrucci
2015 Adam Fenton’s Painting Club, No Format Gallery, Woolwich
2015 Creekside Open, APT Gallery, London, selected by Richard Deacon
2015 Disturbance, Atom Gallery, Stroud Green Road, London
2015 Cold on the outside, Willowbank Crescent, Glasgow
2014 Red Xmas Studio 1.1 gallery, 57a Redchurch Street, Shoreditch, London
2014 Q14 APT Gallery, Harold Wharf, 6 Creekside, Deptford, London
2014 OVERHE(a)R(e), Aplomb Gallery, Chicago, USA
2014 Le Voci Ritrovate, Castello di Monti, Corigliano d’Otranto, Italy
2014 Zeitgeist Open ZAP, ASC Studios, London, selected by Rosalind Davies, Annabel Tilley, Andrew Bick & Juan Bolivar download the catalogue here
2014 Correspond, Turps Art School, Taplow, London, curated by Marcus Harvey, Graham Carrick & Paula MacArthur read the review by Charley Peters
2014 Off the Wall, The 9th Terrace Annual Open, London
2014 Zeitgeist Summer Exhibition, Zeitgeist Arts Projects, London
2014 20 Painters, Phoenix Brighton 10-14 Waterloo Place, Brighton download Painters' Painters essay by Maria Bonner
2014 Crash Open Salon, Charlie Dutton Gallery, 1a Princeton Street, London, selected by Phillip Allen and Neil Tait
2013 Christmas BOGOF, WW Gallery, 34/35 Hatton Garden, London, EC1N 8DX
2013 Lion and Lamb Gallery at Sluice Art Fair, Bermondsey, London
2013 The Open West, Cheltenham Art Gallery
2013 The Femail Project, The Article Gallery, Birmingham City University
2013 Navigate, Bexhill Art Trail supported by the De La Warr Pavillion, The Old Cinema, Bexhill
2013 The Open West, Newark Park Gloucestershire, review by Sunny Cheung
2013 Covert and Obscured, Frances Bardsley Gallery, Romford
2013 Tasty Modern, Schwartz Gallery, London watch the exhibition video here
2012 Seeing in the Dark, The Fletcher Centre, Rye, East Sussex
2012 Minutiae, The Stone Space, London
2012 ALAS Autumn Residency Exhibition, Matt Roberts Arts, Vyner Street, London
2012 The Perfect Nude, touring to Wimbledon Space, Exeter Phoenix Gallery & Charlie Smith London, curated by Philip Allen and Dan Coombs
2011 What the Folk Say, 26 March - December 2011, Compton Verney, Warwickshire
2010 A Thousand Words; an installation for Art in Romney Marsh, St. Nicholas’ Church
2010 London Festival Fringe Art Award, Covent Garden
2005 Ahoy Kunst Event, Rotterdam, Netherlands
1994 Four Self Portrait Artists, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
1993 Prize winner, John Moores 18, Walker Art gallery, Liverpool
1993 Royal Academy Post-Graduates, Grassimuseum, Leipzig, Germany
1991-3 Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, London
1989 Young Contemporaries, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
1989 First Prize Winner, John Player Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery
Residencies and collaborations
2018 Project based residency, Griffin Gallery, London
2017 Trelex Residency, Switzerland
2014 Le Voci Ritrovate, Castello di Monti, Castigliano d’Otranto, Italy supported by De La Warr Pavillion & Hastings Council
2014 Turps Art School Correspondents' Resisdency, Atelier Austmarka, Norway
2014 Brilliant Cut, Shift Dance Company & Paula MacArthur, performed at The Sinden Theatre, Tenterden & The Congress Theatre, Eastbourne
2012 ALAS Residency Matt Robert’s Arts, 25b Vyner Street, London
1994 Four Self Portrait Artists Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Curated exhibitions
2019 The Contemporary British Painting Prize, Menier Gallery, London
2019 Sara Dare Paintings, Rye Creative Centre, Rye East Sussex
2018 New Painting, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London
2018 PaintLounge Berlin, Kühlhaus, Berlin
2017 PaintLounge London, Sluice Expo, London
2016 Slippery & Amorphous, Art Helix Brooklyn
2016 NAVIGATE: Re-envisioning Landscape, Ian Brown, Gary Mckay, Steph Rubin – contemporary approaches to describing the earth’s landscape
2016 We work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have, Alice Anderson, Phil Illingworth, Evy Jokhova
2015 Disturbance, Atom Gallery, London
2014 Le Voci Ritrovate, Castello di Monti, Corigliano d’Otranto, Italy supported by Hastings Council & the De La Warr Pavilion
2014 Correspond, Turps Art School, Taplow, London co-curated with Graham Carrick and Marcus Harvey
2012 Seeing in the Dark, The Fletcher Centre, Rye, East Sussex
Publications
Made in Britain, National Museum, Gdańsk, Poland, exhibition catalogue
Contemporary Masters of Britain, view exhibition catalogue here
Slippery & Amorphous NYC, view exhibition catalogue here
Slippery & Amorphous London, view exhibition catalogue here
Correspond 2016 catalogue
Contemporary Brtish Painting Summer Exhibition 2016, ISBN 9-781534-87-123 downloadable exhibition catalogue here
I don’t like art, selected essays by Graham Crowley, 2015, view Graham Crowley's Still Light essay online
Infinitely Precious Things view the exhibition catalogue online
Correspond exhibition catalogue, 2014, ISBN 978-0-9544296-5-2
Zeitgeist Open 2014, view the exhibition catalogue online
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 ISBN 978-1-907437-00-7
John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 18, National Merseyside Galleries and Museum, ISBN 0-906367-66-2
Royal Academy Schools student exhibition, introduction by Norman Rosenthal
Painting Today, Bonhams, foreward by Nicholas Usherwood
Ten years of the John Player Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery
Artist lectures and discussions
Paint Hard symposium, The Northern School of Art, November 2019
University of Leeds, November 2019
In conversation with Anna McNay at Resonance & wonder, Rye Creative Centre, 3 June 2017
Guest speaker at De La Warr Pavilion Artists Critique Group May 2017
Norwich University for the Arts
De La Warr Pavilion, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill
Jerwood Gallery, Hastings
Glasgow Artist Guild, with Marvin Gaye Chetwynd for the Glasgow Open House Festival
Disturbance, curator and artist discussion for International Womens’ Day 2014
Seeing in the dark, curators talk, The Fletcher Centre, Rye
Ivon Hitchens in context, curator’s talk, Rye Art Gallery, East Sussex
Correspond, artists’ discussion, Turps Art School, London
John Moores Painting Biennial, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Awards
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
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
Double Tree Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, LondonThe current focus of Paula MacArthur’s work is crystals and jewels, these are explorations of colour and light, a contemporary response to Dutch 17th century Pronkstilleven painting - ostentatious still life. Solitary, precious stones are captured in the spotlight, displayed as icons which lure us in and quietly invite us to investigate the multifaceted associations we bring to these treasures.
She selects mineral specimens instinctively, choosing the examples which really thrill. Through the slow, meditative process of painting, these valuable objects reveal themselves to her and she begins to delve into her subconscious and understand how they resonate with her personally. The resulting paintings also resonate more universally; touching upon issues such as materialism, capitalism, feminism and the environment, and broader themes which concern us all, love, beauty and the ephemerality of life.
The crystal series was started in 2019 and developed during lockdown. The glowing forms of the quartz crystal in ‘All these silent moments’ describes an extremely slow growing mineral but it reminds us of both a small, momentary splash in a pool and a vast, exploding supernova. ‘Didn’t I give you nearly everything’ describes thin, fragile gypsum filaments as they expand into a solid yet extremely delicate heart shaped form. Both canvases were painted slowly and carefully in very thin glazes during lockdown, MacArthur’s approach changed subtly to reflect the collective feeling of anxiety arising from the pandemic. The crystal forms are beautiful and strange; emerging from the painted void they seem suddenly to mimic the alien appearance of a virus and become both ominous and beautiful. Within a single object our desire to accumulate treasures as tokens of love and displays of wealth is contrasted with the knowledge of our own fragility and ultimate demise.
Education
1993 Royal Academy Schools, Post-Graduate Diploma, Fine Art Painting
1990 Loughborough College of Art and Design, BA Hons, Fine Art Painting
Solo exhibitions
2022 Still Light, Rye Art Gallery, East Sussex
2018 Verse: Inverse, obverse, converse, reverse, Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope Gallery
2017 Resonance & wonder, with songs by Tine Louise Kortermand, Rye Creative Centre
2014 Infinitely Precious Things, VJB Arts at 60 Threadneedle Street, London
Current and forthcoming exhibitions
2023 Arcadia for all? Rethinking landscape painting now, Attenborough Arts Centre, University of Leicester until 28 January 2024
2023 The London Group Open 2023, Copeland Gallery, 133 Rye Lane, London SE15 3SN until 26 November 2023
2023 Abundance, Rye Art Gallery, private view from 11am on Saturday 18 November, continues until Sunday 14 January 2024
2023 At Cross Purposes, book & touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, Elysium Gallery, Swansea 11 November - 23 December
Selected group exhibitions
2023 Of Lightness, Hermione Allsopp, Clare Chapman, Paula MacArthur & Perdita Sinclair, Blyth Gallery, Imperial College London
2023 Art on a Postcard, exhibition and online auction, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne
2023 At Cross Purposes, book & touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, QSS Studios Gallery, Belfast
2023 New Road Artists Autumn Exhibition, Rye Creative Centre, East Sussex
2023 The Art Car Boot Fair Goes Pop, online
2023 Open Studios, Rye Creative Centre, East Sussex
2023 Goddesses on Sea, Lido Stores, Margate
2023 Paint Fiction, International Gallery of Contemporary Art, Anchorage, Alaska, USA
2023 Arcadia for all? Rethinking landscape painting now, Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds
2023 X - Contemporary British Painting, Newcastle Contemporary Art, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
2023 At Cross Purposes, book and touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, Oriel Ynys Môn, Anglesey
2023 Rogue Women 2, Rogue Artists’ Studios, Manchester
2023 At Cross Purposes, book and touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, Aberystwyth University Museum Gallery
2023 Goddesses: A Love Explosion, Terrace Gallery, London
2023 This Year's Model, Studio 1.1, London
2023 Embracement, online exhibition at Tin Man Art for International Women's Day
2022-3 Entwined, Huddersfield Art Gallery, then touring to 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe until 27 May 2023
2022 Winter Lights, an online exhibition at Tin Man Art
2022 Love, Celebration and the Road Ahead curated by Hettie Judah, TJ Boulting, London
2022 Once Upon an Instant, HTW Berlin
2022 Variations, Rye Creative Centre
2022 A Generous Space 2, The New Art Gallery Walsall
2022 Vitalistic Fantasies, Elysium Gallery, Swansea
2022 Paradoxes, Quay Arts, Ryde, Isle of Wight
2021 A Generous Space, Hastings Contemporary
2021 Supernature, Kaleidoscope Gallery, Sevenoaks
2021 Human:Nature, Linden Hall Studio, Deal, Kent
2021 Margins curated by Matthew Burrows MBE
2021 This Year's Model, Studio 1.1, London
2020 Lockdown Interviews exhibition, The Cello Factory, London
2020 Vitalistic Fantasies, The Cello Factory, London
2020 Wells Art Contemporary, online exhibition
2020 Beep Painting Prize, Elysium Gallery, Swansea
2020 Yes/No, an online open studio exhibition by 31 members of the artist led group, Contemporary British Painting
2019 A Hand Stuffed Mattress curated by Karl Bielik, Terrace Gallery, London
2019 Supernature curated by PaintLounge, The Auxiliary Project Space, Middlesbrough
2019 Mountain Size curated by Gordon Dalton, Pineapple Black, Middlesbrough
2019 Indoor Voices curated by Graham Crowley, Greystone Industries, Wickham Market, Suffolk
2019 Made in Britain, National Museum, Gdańsk, Poland
2019 Contemporary British Painting, The Hostry, Norwich
2019 Im/material bodies, Sluice HQ touring to Rye Creative Centre
2018 New Painting, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London
2018 PaintLounge Berlin, Kühlhaus, Berlin
2018 Subsumed, curated by Fiona Long, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London
2018 In the Future, curated by Rosalind Davis, Collyer Bristow Gallery Click here for the press release.
2018 Beep Painting Prize, Swansea College of Art
2018 Superstition, Project Space Wapping, London
2018 PaintNorth, Lady Beck Project Space, Leeds
2018 Devonshire Collective, Eastbourne, five Sussex artists: Izabela Brudkiewicz, Nikki Davidson Bowman, Jane King, Paua MacArthur & April Yasamee
2018 Testcard P, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London, NW1 5LT
2017 Contemporary Masters from Britain, 80 works selected from the Priseman Seabrook Collection of 21st Century British Painting
The Yantai Art Museum, Jiangsu Arts and Crafts Museum, Jiangsu Art Museum, and Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Museum
Buy Exhibition Catalogue Here
2017 Summer Salon, Lubomirov Angus-Hughes, London
2017 Contemporary Masters from Britain, The Yantai Art Museum , Yantai, China
2017 Highly Inflammable, The Crypt, St Mary in the Castle, Hastings
2017 On the other side, recent works by New Road Artists, Rye Art Gallery
2017 Contemporary British Painting Summer Exhibition, Art Bermondsey Project Space
2017 Contemporary Masters from the East of England: 35 Painters from the East of England, The Cut, Halesworth, 25 April - 27 May
2017 30x30x34, Contemporary British Painting Winter Exhibition, The Crypt, St Marylebone Church, London
2016 Slippery & Amorphous NYC, Sluice Exchange Rates International Exposition, ArtHelix, Brooklyn, NYC, downloadable catalogue here
2016 Contemporary British Painting Summer Exhibition, Quay Arts, Ryde, Isle of Wight
2016 Slippery & Amorphous The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London download catalogue
2016 Correspond, The Artworks, 1830 Building, Shaw Lane, Halifax
touring to Rye Creative Centre, East Sussex and Interview Room 11, Edinburgh
2016 This Year's Model, Studio 1.1, Shoreditch, London
2015 Right Here, Right Now, Rye Studio, East Sussex, Hermione Allsopp, Andrzej Jackowski, Chantal Joffe, Paula MacArthur, Dave McKean
2015 Undead Painters, ASC Gallery, New Cross Gate, London, curated by Alastair Gordon and James Petrucci
2015 Adam Fenton’s Painting Club, No Format Gallery, Woolwich
2015 Creekside Open, APT Gallery, London, selected by Richard Deacon
2015 Disturbance, Atom Gallery, Stroud Green Road, London
2015 Cold on the outside, Willowbank Crescent, Glasgow
2014 Red Xmas Studio 1.1 gallery, 57a Redchurch Street, Shoreditch, London
2014 Q14 APT Gallery, Harold Wharf, 6 Creekside, Deptford, London
2014 OVERHE(a)R(e), Aplomb Gallery, Chicago, USA
2014 Le Voci Ritrovate, Castello di Monti, Corigliano d’Otranto, Italy
2014 Zeitgeist Open ZAP, ASC Studios, London, selected by Rosalind Davies, Annabel Tilley, Andrew Bick & Juan Bolivar download the catalogue here
2014 Correspond, Turps Art School, Taplow, London, curated by Marcus Harvey, Graham Carrick & Paula MacArthur read the review by Charley Peters
2014 Off the Wall, The 9th Terrace Annual Open, London
2014 Zeitgeist Summer Exhibition, Zeitgeist Arts Projects, London
2014 20 Painters, Phoenix Brighton 10-14 Waterloo Place, Brighton download Painters' Painters essay by Maria Bonner
2014 Crash Open Salon, Charlie Dutton Gallery, 1a Princeton Street, London, selected by Phillip Allen and Neil Tait
2013 Christmas BOGOF, WW Gallery, 34/35 Hatton Garden, London, EC1N 8DX
2013 Lion and Lamb Gallery at Sluice Art Fair, Bermondsey, London
2013 The Open West, Cheltenham Art Gallery
2013 The Femail Project, The Article Gallery, Birmingham City University
2013 Navigate, Bexhill Art Trail supported by the De La Warr Pavillion, The Old Cinema, Bexhill
2013 The Open West, Newark Park Gloucestershire, review by Sunny Cheung
2013 Covert and Obscured, Frances Bardsley Gallery, Romford
2013 Tasty Modern, Schwartz Gallery, London watch the exhibition video here
2012 Seeing in the Dark, The Fletcher Centre, Rye, East Sussex
2012 Minutiae, The Stone Space, London
2012 ALAS Autumn Residency Exhibition, Matt Roberts Arts, Vyner Street, London
2012 The Perfect Nude, touring to Wimbledon Space, Exeter Phoenix Gallery & Charlie Smith London, curated by Philip Allen and Dan Coombs
2011 What the Folk Say, 26 March - December 2011, Compton Verney, Warwickshire
2010 A Thousand Words; an installation for Art in Romney Marsh, St. Nicholas’ Church
2010 London Festival Fringe Art Award, Covent Garden
2005 Ahoy Kunst Event, Rotterdam, Netherlands
1994 Four Self Portrait Artists, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
1993 Prize winner, John Moores 18, Walker Art gallery, Liverpool
1993 Royal Academy Post-Graduates, Grassimuseum, Leipzig, Germany
1991-3 Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, London
1989 Young Contemporaries, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
1989 First Prize Winner, John Player Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery
Residencies and collaborations
2018 Project based residency, Griffin Gallery, London
2017 Trelex Residency, Switzerland
2014 Le Voci Ritrovate, Castello di Monti, Castigliano d’Otranto, Italy supported by De La Warr Pavillion & Hastings Council
2014 Turps Art School Correspondents' Resisdency, Atelier Austmarka, Norway
2014 Brilliant Cut, Shift Dance Company & Paula MacArthur, performed at The Sinden Theatre, Tenterden & The Congress Theatre, Eastbourne
2012 ALAS Residency Matt Robert’s Arts, 25b Vyner Street, London
1994 Four Self Portrait Artists Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Curated exhibitions
2019 The Contemporary British Painting Prize, Menier Gallery, London
2019 Sara Dare Paintings, Rye Creative Centre, Rye East Sussex
2018 New Painting, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London
2018 PaintLounge Berlin, Kühlhaus, Berlin
2017 PaintLounge London, Sluice Expo, London
2016 Slippery & Amorphous, Art Helix Brooklyn
2016 NAVIGATE: Re-envisioning Landscape, Ian Brown, Gary Mckay, Steph Rubin – contemporary approaches to describing the earth’s landscape
2016 We work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have, Alice Anderson, Phil Illingworth, Evy Jokhova
2015 Disturbance, Atom Gallery, London
2014 Le Voci Ritrovate, Castello di Monti, Corigliano d’Otranto, Italy supported by Hastings Council & the De La Warr Pavilion
2014 Correspond, Turps Art School, Taplow, London co-curated with Graham Carrick and Marcus Harvey
2012 Seeing in the Dark, The Fletcher Centre, Rye, East Sussex
Publications
Made in Britain, National Museum, Gdańsk, Poland, exhibition catalogue
Contemporary Masters of Britain, view exhibition catalogue here
Slippery & Amorphous NYC, view exhibition catalogue here
Slippery & Amorphous London, view exhibition catalogue here
Correspond 2016 catalogue
Contemporary Brtish Painting Summer Exhibition 2016, ISBN 9-781534-87-123 downloadable exhibition catalogue here
I don’t like art, selected essays by Graham Crowley, 2015, view Graham Crowley's Still Light essay online
Infinitely Precious Things view the exhibition catalogue online
Correspond exhibition catalogue, 2014, ISBN 978-0-9544296-5-2
Zeitgeist Open 2014, view the exhibition catalogue online
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 ISBN 978-1-907437-00-7
John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 18, National Merseyside Galleries and Museum, ISBN 0-906367-66-2
Royal Academy Schools student exhibition, introduction by Norman Rosenthal
Painting Today, Bonhams, foreward by Nicholas Usherwood
Ten years of the John Player Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery
Artist lectures and discussions
Paint Hard symposium, The Northern School of Art, November 2019
University of Leeds, November 2019
In conversation with Anna McNay at Resonance & wonder, Rye Creative Centre, 3 June 2017
Guest speaker at De La Warr Pavilion Artists Critique Group May 2017
Norwich University for the Arts
De La Warr Pavilion, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill
Jerwood Gallery, Hastings
Glasgow Artist Guild, with Marvin Gaye Chetwynd for the Glasgow Open House Festival
Disturbance, curator and artist discussion for International Womens’ Day 2014
Seeing in the dark, curators talk, The Fletcher Centre, Rye
Ivon Hitchens in context, curator’s talk, Rye Art Gallery, East Sussex
Correspond, artists’ discussion, Turps Art School, London
John Moores Painting Biennial, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Awards
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
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
Double Tree Hilton Park Lane London
She selects mineral specimens instinctively, choosing the examples which really thrill. Through the slow, meditative process of painting, these valuable objects reveal themselves to her and she begins to delve into her subconscious and understand how they resonate with her personally. The resulting paintings also resonate more universally; touching upon issues such as materialism, capitalism, feminism and the environment, and broader themes which concern us all, love, beauty and the ephemerality of life.
The crystal series was started in 2019 and developed during lockdown. The glowing forms of the quartz crystal in ‘All these silent moments’ describes an extremely slow growing mineral but it reminds us of both a small, momentary splash in a pool and a vast, exploding supernova. ‘Didn’t I give you nearly everything’ describes thin, fragile gypsum filaments as they expand into a solid yet extremely delicate heart shaped form. Both canvases were painted slowly and carefully in very thin glazes during lockdown, MacArthur’s approach changed subtly to reflect the collective feeling of anxiety arising from the pandemic. The crystal forms are beautiful and strange; emerging from the painted void they seem suddenly to mimic the alien appearance of a virus and become both ominous and beautiful. Within a single object our desire to accumulate treasures as tokens of love and displays of wealth is contrasted with the knowledge of our own fragility and ultimate demise.
Education
1993 Royal Academy Schools, Post-Graduate Diploma, Fine Art Painting
1990 Loughborough College of Art and Design, BA Hons, Fine Art Painting
Solo exhibitions
2022 Still Light, Rye Art Gallery, East Sussex
2018 Verse: Inverse, obverse, converse, reverse, Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope Gallery
2017 Resonance & wonder, with songs by Tine Louise Kortermand, Rye Creative Centre
2014 Infinitely Precious Things, VJB Arts at 60 Threadneedle Street, London
Current and forthcoming exhibitions
2023 Arcadia for all? Rethinking landscape painting now, Attenborough Arts Centre, University of Leicester until 28 January 2024
2023 The London Group Open 2023, Copeland Gallery, 133 Rye Lane, London SE15 3SN until 26 November 2023
2023 Abundance, Rye Art Gallery, private view from 11am on Saturday 18 November, continues until Sunday 14 January 2024
2023 At Cross Purposes, book & touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, Elysium Gallery, Swansea 11 November - 23 December
Selected group exhibitions
2023 Of Lightness, Hermione Allsopp, Clare Chapman, Paula MacArthur & Perdita Sinclair, Blyth Gallery, Imperial College London
2023 Art on a Postcard, exhibition and online auction, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne
2023 At Cross Purposes, book & touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, QSS Studios Gallery, Belfast
2023 New Road Artists Autumn Exhibition, Rye Creative Centre, East Sussex
2023 The Art Car Boot Fair Goes Pop, online
2023 Open Studios, Rye Creative Centre, East Sussex
2023 Goddesses on Sea, Lido Stores, Margate
2023 Paint Fiction, International Gallery of Contemporary Art, Anchorage, Alaska, USA
2023 Arcadia for all? Rethinking landscape painting now, Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds
2023 X - Contemporary British Painting, Newcastle Contemporary Art, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
2023 At Cross Purposes, book and touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, Oriel Ynys Môn, Anglesey
2023 Rogue Women 2, Rogue Artists’ Studios, Manchester
2023 At Cross Purposes, book and touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, Aberystwyth University Museum Gallery
2023 Goddesses: A Love Explosion, Terrace Gallery, London
2023 This Year's Model, Studio 1.1, London
2023 Embracement, online exhibition at Tin Man Art for International Women's Day
2022-3 Entwined, Huddersfield Art Gallery, then touring to 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe until 27 May 2023
2022 Winter Lights, an online exhibition at Tin Man Art
2022 Love, Celebration and the Road Ahead curated by Hettie Judah, TJ Boulting, London
2022 Once Upon an Instant, HTW Berlin
2022 Variations, Rye Creative Centre
2022 A Generous Space 2, The New Art Gallery Walsall
2022 Vitalistic Fantasies, Elysium Gallery, Swansea
2022 Paradoxes, Quay Arts, Ryde, Isle of Wight
2021 A Generous Space, Hastings Contemporary
2021 Supernature, Kaleidoscope Gallery, Sevenoaks
2021 Human:Nature, Linden Hall Studio, Deal, Kent
2021 Margins curated by Matthew Burrows MBE
2021 This Year's Model, Studio 1.1, London
2020 Lockdown Interviews exhibition, The Cello Factory, London
2020 Vitalistic Fantasies, The Cello Factory, London
2020 Wells Art Contemporary, online exhibition
2020 Beep Painting Prize, Elysium Gallery, Swansea
2020 Yes/No, an online open studio exhibition by 31 members of the artist led group, Contemporary British Painting
2019 A Hand Stuffed Mattress curated by Karl Bielik, Terrace Gallery, London
2019 Supernature curated by PaintLounge, The Auxiliary Project Space, Middlesbrough
2019 Mountain Size curated by Gordon Dalton, Pineapple Black, Middlesbrough
2019 Indoor Voices curated by Graham Crowley, Greystone Industries, Wickham Market, Suffolk
2019 Made in Britain, National Museum, Gdańsk, Poland
2019 Contemporary British Painting, The Hostry, Norwich
2019 Im/material bodies, Sluice HQ touring to Rye Creative Centre
2018 New Painting, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London
2018 PaintLounge Berlin, Kühlhaus, Berlin
2018 Subsumed, curated by Fiona Long, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London
2018 In the Future, curated by Rosalind Davis, Collyer Bristow Gallery Click here for the press release.
2018 Beep Painting Prize, Swansea College of Art
2018 Superstition, Project Space Wapping, London
2018 PaintNorth, Lady Beck Project Space, Leeds
2018 Devonshire Collective, Eastbourne, five Sussex artists: Izabela Brudkiewicz, Nikki Davidson Bowman, Jane King, Paua MacArthur & April Yasamee
2018 Testcard P, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London, NW1 5LT
2017 Contemporary Masters from Britain, 80 works selected from the Priseman Seabrook Collection of 21st Century British Painting
The Yantai Art Museum, Jiangsu Arts and Crafts Museum, Jiangsu Art Museum, and Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Museum
Buy Exhibition Catalogue Here
2017 Summer Salon, Lubomirov Angus-Hughes, London
2017 Contemporary Masters from Britain, The Yantai Art Museum , Yantai, China
2017 Highly Inflammable, The Crypt, St Mary in the Castle, Hastings
2017 On the other side, recent works by New Road Artists, Rye Art Gallery
2017 Contemporary British Painting Summer Exhibition, Art Bermondsey Project Space
2017 Contemporary Masters from the East of England: 35 Painters from the East of England, The Cut, Halesworth, 25 April - 27 May
2017 30x30x34, Contemporary British Painting Winter Exhibition, The Crypt, St Marylebone Church, London
2016 Slippery & Amorphous NYC, Sluice Exchange Rates International Exposition, ArtHelix, Brooklyn, NYC, downloadable catalogue here
2016 Contemporary British Painting Summer Exhibition, Quay Arts, Ryde, Isle of Wight
2016 Slippery & Amorphous The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London download catalogue
2016 Correspond, The Artworks, 1830 Building, Shaw Lane, Halifax
touring to Rye Creative Centre, East Sussex and Interview Room 11, Edinburgh
2016 This Year's Model, Studio 1.1, Shoreditch, London
2015 Right Here, Right Now, Rye Studio, East Sussex, Hermione Allsopp, Andrzej Jackowski, Chantal Joffe, Paula MacArthur, Dave McKean
2015 Undead Painters, ASC Gallery, New Cross Gate, London, curated by Alastair Gordon and James Petrucci
2015 Adam Fenton’s Painting Club, No Format Gallery, Woolwich
2015 Creekside Open, APT Gallery, London, selected by Richard Deacon
2015 Disturbance, Atom Gallery, Stroud Green Road, London
2015 Cold on the outside, Willowbank Crescent, Glasgow
2014 Red Xmas Studio 1.1 gallery, 57a Redchurch Street, Shoreditch, London
2014 Q14 APT Gallery, Harold Wharf, 6 Creekside, Deptford, London
2014 OVERHE(a)R(e), Aplomb Gallery, Chicago, USA
2014 Le Voci Ritrovate, Castello di Monti, Corigliano d’Otranto, Italy
2014 Zeitgeist Open ZAP, ASC Studios, London, selected by Rosalind Davies, Annabel Tilley, Andrew Bick & Juan Bolivar download the catalogue here
2014 Correspond, Turps Art School, Taplow, London, curated by Marcus Harvey, Graham Carrick & Paula MacArthur read the review by Charley Peters
2014 Off the Wall, The 9th Terrace Annual Open, London
2014 Zeitgeist Summer Exhibition, Zeitgeist Arts Projects, London
2014 20 Painters, Phoenix Brighton 10-14 Waterloo Place, Brighton download Painters' Painters essay by Maria Bonner
2014 Crash Open Salon, Charlie Dutton Gallery, 1a Princeton Street, London, selected by Phillip Allen and Neil Tait
2013 Christmas BOGOF, WW Gallery, 34/35 Hatton Garden, London, EC1N 8DX
2013 Lion and Lamb Gallery at Sluice Art Fair, Bermondsey, London
2013 The Open West, Cheltenham Art Gallery
2013 The Femail Project, The Article Gallery, Birmingham City University
2013 Navigate, Bexhill Art Trail supported by the De La Warr Pavillion, The Old Cinema, Bexhill
2013 The Open West, Newark Park Gloucestershire, review by Sunny Cheung
2013 Covert and Obscured, Frances Bardsley Gallery, Romford
2013 Tasty Modern, Schwartz Gallery, London watch the exhibition video here
2012 Seeing in the Dark, The Fletcher Centre, Rye, East Sussex
2012 Minutiae, The Stone Space, London
2012 ALAS Autumn Residency Exhibition, Matt Roberts Arts, Vyner Street, London
2012 The Perfect Nude, touring to Wimbledon Space, Exeter Phoenix Gallery & Charlie Smith London, curated by Philip Allen and Dan Coombs
2011 What the Folk Say, 26 March - December 2011, Compton Verney, Warwickshire
2010 A Thousand Words; an installation for Art in Romney Marsh, St. Nicholas’ Church
2010 London Festival Fringe Art Award, Covent Garden
2005 Ahoy Kunst Event, Rotterdam, Netherlands
1994 Four Self Portrait Artists, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
1993 Prize winner, John Moores 18, Walker Art gallery, Liverpool
1993 Royal Academy Post-Graduates, Grassimuseum, Leipzig, Germany
1991-3 Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, London
1989 Young Contemporaries, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
1989 First Prize Winner, John Player Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery
Residencies and collaborations
2018 Project based residency, Griffin Gallery, London
2017 Trelex Residency, Switzerland
2014 Le Voci Ritrovate, Castello di Monti, Castigliano d’Otranto, Italy supported by De La Warr Pavillion & Hastings Council
2014 Turps Art School Correspondents' Resisdency, Atelier Austmarka, Norway
2014 Brilliant Cut, Shift Dance Company & Paula MacArthur, performed at The Sinden Theatre, Tenterden & The Congress Theatre, Eastbourne
2012 ALAS Residency Matt Robert’s Arts, 25b Vyner Street, London
1994 Four Self Portrait Artists Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Curated exhibitions
2019 The Contemporary British Painting Prize, Menier Gallery, London
2019 Sara Dare Paintings, Rye Creative Centre, Rye East Sussex
2018 New Painting, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London
2018 PaintLounge Berlin, Kühlhaus, Berlin
2017 PaintLounge London, Sluice Expo, London
2016 Slippery & Amorphous, Art Helix Brooklyn
2016 NAVIGATE: Re-envisioning Landscape, Ian Brown, Gary Mckay, Steph Rubin – contemporary approaches to describing the earth’s landscape
2016 We work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have, Alice Anderson, Phil Illingworth, Evy Jokhova
2015 Disturbance, Atom Gallery, London
2014 Le Voci Ritrovate, Castello di Monti, Corigliano d’Otranto, Italy supported by Hastings Council & the De La Warr Pavilion
2014 Correspond, Turps Art School, Taplow, London co-curated with Graham Carrick and Marcus Harvey
2012 Seeing in the Dark, The Fletcher Centre, Rye, East Sussex
Publications
Made in Britain, National Museum, Gdańsk, Poland, exhibition catalogue
Contemporary Masters of Britain, view exhibition catalogue here
Slippery & Amorphous NYC, view exhibition catalogue here
Slippery & Amorphous London, view exhibition catalogue here
Correspond 2016 catalogue
Contemporary Brtish Painting Summer Exhibition 2016, ISBN 9-781534-87-123 downloadable exhibition catalogue here
I don’t like art, selected essays by Graham Crowley, 2015, view Graham Crowley's Still Light essay online
Infinitely Precious Things view the exhibition catalogue online
Correspond exhibition catalogue, 2014, ISBN 978-0-9544296-5-2
Zeitgeist Open 2014, view the exhibition catalogue online
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 ISBN 978-1-907437-00-7
John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 18, National Merseyside Galleries and Museum, ISBN 0-906367-66-2
Royal Academy Schools student exhibition, introduction by Norman Rosenthal
Painting Today, Bonhams, foreward by Nicholas Usherwood
Ten years of the John Player Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery
Artist lectures and discussions
Paint Hard symposium, The Northern School of Art, November 2019
University of Leeds, November 2019
In conversation with Anna McNay at Resonance & wonder, Rye Creative Centre, 3 June 2017
Guest speaker at De La Warr Pavilion Artists Critique Group May 2017
Norwich University for the Arts
De La Warr Pavilion, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill
Jerwood Gallery, Hastings
Glasgow Artist Guild, with Marvin Gaye Chetwynd for the Glasgow Open House Festival
Disturbance, curator and artist discussion for International Womens’ Day 2014
Seeing in the dark, curators talk, The Fletcher Centre, Rye
Ivon Hitchens in context, curator’s talk, Rye Art Gallery, East Sussex
Correspond, artists’ discussion, Turps Art School, London
John Moores Painting Biennial, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Awards
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
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
Double Tree Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, LondonThe current focus of Paula MacArthur’s work is crystals and jewels, these are explorations of colour and light, a contemporary response to Dutch 17th century Pronkstilleven painting - ostentatious still life. Solitary, precious stones are captured in the spotlight, displayed as icons which lure us in and quietly invite us to investigate the multifaceted associations we bring to these treasures.
She selects mineral specimens instinctively, choosing the examples which really thrill. Through the slow, meditative process of painting, these valuable objects reveal themselves to her and she begins to delve into her subconscious and understand how they resonate with her personally. The resulting paintings also resonate more universally; touching upon issues such as materialism, capitalism, feminism and the environment, and broader themes which concern us all, love, beauty and the ephemerality of life.
The crystal series was started in 2019 and developed during lockdown. The glowing forms of the quartz crystal in ‘All these silent moments’ describes an extremely slow growing mineral but it reminds us of both a small, momentary splash in a pool and a vast, exploding supernova. ‘Didn’t I give you nearly everything’ describes thin, fragile gypsum filaments as they expand into a solid yet extremely delicate heart shaped form. Both canvases were painted slowly and carefully in very thin glazes during lockdown, MacArthur’s approach changed subtly to reflect the collective feeling of anxiety arising from the pandemic. The crystal forms are beautiful and strange; emerging from the painted void they seem suddenly to mimic the alien appearance of a virus and become both ominous and beautiful. Within a single object our desire to accumulate treasures as tokens of love and displays of wealth is contrasted with the knowledge of our own fragility and ultimate demise.
Education
1993 Royal Academy Schools, Post-Graduate Diploma, Fine Art Painting
1990 Loughborough College of Art and Design, BA Hons, Fine Art Painting
Solo exhibitions
2022 Still Light, Rye Art Gallery, East Sussex
2018 Verse: Inverse, obverse, converse, reverse, Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope Gallery
2017 Resonance & wonder, with songs by Tine Louise Kortermand, Rye Creative Centre
2014 Infinitely Precious Things, VJB Arts at 60 Threadneedle Street, London
Current and forthcoming exhibitions
2023 Arcadia for all? Rethinking landscape painting now, Attenborough Arts Centre, University of Leicester until 28 January 2024
2023 The London Group Open 2023, Copeland Gallery, 133 Rye Lane, London SE15 3SN until 26 November 2023
2023 Abundance, Rye Art Gallery, private view from 11am on Saturday 18 November, continues until Sunday 14 January 2024
2023 At Cross Purposes, book & touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, Elysium Gallery, Swansea 11 November - 23 December
Selected group exhibitions
2023 Of Lightness, Hermione Allsopp, Clare Chapman, Paula MacArthur & Perdita Sinclair, Blyth Gallery, Imperial College London
2023 Art on a Postcard, exhibition and online auction, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne
2023 At Cross Purposes, book & touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, QSS Studios Gallery, Belfast
2023 New Road Artists Autumn Exhibition, Rye Creative Centre, East Sussex
2023 The Art Car Boot Fair Goes Pop, online
2023 Open Studios, Rye Creative Centre, East Sussex
2023 Goddesses on Sea, Lido Stores, Margate
2023 Paint Fiction, International Gallery of Contemporary Art, Anchorage, Alaska, USA
2023 Arcadia for all? Rethinking landscape painting now, Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds
2023 X - Contemporary British Painting, Newcastle Contemporary Art, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
2023 At Cross Purposes, book and touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, Oriel Ynys Môn, Anglesey
2023 Rogue Women 2, Rogue Artists’ Studios, Manchester
2023 At Cross Purposes, book and touring exhibition curated by Dr Frances Woodley, Aberystwyth University Museum Gallery
2023 Goddesses: A Love Explosion, Terrace Gallery, London
2023 This Year's Model, Studio 1.1, London
2023 Embracement, online exhibition at Tin Man Art for International Women's Day
2022-3 Entwined, Huddersfield Art Gallery, then touring to 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe until 27 May 2023
2022 Winter Lights, an online exhibition at Tin Man Art
2022 Love, Celebration and the Road Ahead curated by Hettie Judah, TJ Boulting, London
2022 Once Upon an Instant, HTW Berlin
2022 Variations, Rye Creative Centre
2022 A Generous Space 2, The New Art Gallery Walsall
2022 Vitalistic Fantasies, Elysium Gallery, Swansea
2022 Paradoxes, Quay Arts, Ryde, Isle of Wight
2021 A Generous Space, Hastings Contemporary
2021 Supernature, Kaleidoscope Gallery, Sevenoaks
2021 Human:Nature, Linden Hall Studio, Deal, Kent
2021 Margins curated by Matthew Burrows MBE
2021 This Year's Model, Studio 1.1, London
2020 Lockdown Interviews exhibition, The Cello Factory, London
2020 Vitalistic Fantasies, The Cello Factory, London
2020 Wells Art Contemporary, online exhibition
2020 Beep Painting Prize, Elysium Gallery, Swansea
2020 Yes/No, an online open studio exhibition by 31 members of the artist led group, Contemporary British Painting
2019 A Hand Stuffed Mattress curated by Karl Bielik, Terrace Gallery, London
2019 Supernature curated by PaintLounge, The Auxiliary Project Space, Middlesbrough
2019 Mountain Size curated by Gordon Dalton, Pineapple Black, Middlesbrough
2019 Indoor Voices curated by Graham Crowley, Greystone Industries, Wickham Market, Suffolk
2019 Made in Britain, National Museum, Gdańsk, Poland
2019 Contemporary British Painting, The Hostry, Norwich
2019 Im/material bodies, Sluice HQ touring to Rye Creative Centre
2018 New Painting, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London
2018 PaintLounge Berlin, Kühlhaus, Berlin
2018 Subsumed, curated by Fiona Long, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London
2018 In the Future, curated by Rosalind Davis, Collyer Bristow Gallery Click here for the press release.
2018 Beep Painting Prize, Swansea College of Art
2018 Superstition, Project Space Wapping, London
2018 PaintNorth, Lady Beck Project Space, Leeds
2018 Devonshire Collective, Eastbourne, five Sussex artists: Izabela Brudkiewicz, Nikki Davidson Bowman, Jane King, Paua MacArthur & April Yasamee
2018 Testcard P, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London, NW1 5LT
2017 Contemporary Masters from Britain, 80 works selected from the Priseman Seabrook Collection of 21st Century British Painting
The Yantai Art Museum, Jiangsu Arts and Crafts Museum, Jiangsu Art Museum, and Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Museum
Buy Exhibition Catalogue Here
2017 Summer Salon, Lubomirov Angus-Hughes, London
2017 Contemporary Masters from Britain, The Yantai Art Museum , Yantai, China
2017 Highly Inflammable, The Crypt, St Mary in the Castle, Hastings
2017 On the other side, recent works by New Road Artists, Rye Art Gallery
2017 Contemporary British Painting Summer Exhibition, Art Bermondsey Project Space
2017 Contemporary Masters from the East of England: 35 Painters from the East of England, The Cut, Halesworth, 25 April - 27 May
2017 30x30x34, Contemporary British Painting Winter Exhibition, The Crypt, St Marylebone Church, London
2016 Slippery & Amorphous NYC, Sluice Exchange Rates International Exposition, ArtHelix, Brooklyn, NYC, downloadable catalogue here
2016 Contemporary British Painting Summer Exhibition, Quay Arts, Ryde, Isle of Wight
2016 Slippery & Amorphous The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London download catalogue
2016 Correspond, The Artworks, 1830 Building, Shaw Lane, Halifax
touring to Rye Creative Centre, East Sussex and Interview Room 11, Edinburgh
2016 This Year's Model, Studio 1.1, Shoreditch, London
2015 Right Here, Right Now, Rye Studio, East Sussex, Hermione Allsopp, Andrzej Jackowski, Chantal Joffe, Paula MacArthur, Dave McKean
2015 Undead Painters, ASC Gallery, New Cross Gate, London, curated by Alastair Gordon and James Petrucci
2015 Adam Fenton’s Painting Club, No Format Gallery, Woolwich
2015 Creekside Open, APT Gallery, London, selected by Richard Deacon
2015 Disturbance, Atom Gallery, Stroud Green Road, London
2015 Cold on the outside, Willowbank Crescent, Glasgow
2014 Red Xmas Studio 1.1 gallery, 57a Redchurch Street, Shoreditch, London
2014 Q14 APT Gallery, Harold Wharf, 6 Creekside, Deptford, London
2014 OVERHE(a)R(e), Aplomb Gallery, Chicago, USA
2014 Le Voci Ritrovate, Castello di Monti, Corigliano d’Otranto, Italy
2014 Zeitgeist Open ZAP, ASC Studios, London, selected by Rosalind Davies, Annabel Tilley, Andrew Bick & Juan Bolivar download the catalogue here
2014 Correspond, Turps Art School, Taplow, London, curated by Marcus Harvey, Graham Carrick & Paula MacArthur read the review by Charley Peters
2014 Off the Wall, The 9th Terrace Annual Open, London
2014 Zeitgeist Summer Exhibition, Zeitgeist Arts Projects, London
2014 20 Painters, Phoenix Brighton 10-14 Waterloo Place, Brighton download Painters' Painters essay by Maria Bonner
2014 Crash Open Salon, Charlie Dutton Gallery, 1a Princeton Street, London, selected by Phillip Allen and Neil Tait
2013 Christmas BOGOF, WW Gallery, 34/35 Hatton Garden, London, EC1N 8DX
2013 Lion and Lamb Gallery at Sluice Art Fair, Bermondsey, London
2013 The Open West, Cheltenham Art Gallery
2013 The Femail Project, The Article Gallery, Birmingham City University
2013 Navigate, Bexhill Art Trail supported by the De La Warr Pavillion, The Old Cinema, Bexhill
2013 The Open West, Newark Park Gloucestershire, review by Sunny Cheung
2013 Covert and Obscured, Frances Bardsley Gallery, Romford
2013 Tasty Modern, Schwartz Gallery, London watch the exhibition video here
2012 Seeing in the Dark, The Fletcher Centre, Rye, East Sussex
2012 Minutiae, The Stone Space, London
2012 ALAS Autumn Residency Exhibition, Matt Roberts Arts, Vyner Street, London
2012 The Perfect Nude, touring to Wimbledon Space, Exeter Phoenix Gallery & Charlie Smith London, curated by Philip Allen and Dan Coombs
2011 What the Folk Say, 26 March - December 2011, Compton Verney, Warwickshire
2010 A Thousand Words; an installation for Art in Romney Marsh, St. Nicholas’ Church
2010 London Festival Fringe Art Award, Covent Garden
2005 Ahoy Kunst Event, Rotterdam, Netherlands
1994 Four Self Portrait Artists, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
1993 Prize winner, John Moores 18, Walker Art gallery, Liverpool
1993 Royal Academy Post-Graduates, Grassimuseum, Leipzig, Germany
1991-3 Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, London
1989 Young Contemporaries, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
1989 First Prize Winner, John Player Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery
Residencies and collaborations
2018 Project based residency, Griffin Gallery, London
2017 Trelex Residency, Switzerland
2014 Le Voci Ritrovate, Castello di Monti, Castigliano d’Otranto, Italy supported by De La Warr Pavillion & Hastings Council
2014 Turps Art School Correspondents' Resisdency, Atelier Austmarka, Norway
2014 Brilliant Cut, Shift Dance Company & Paula MacArthur, performed at The Sinden Theatre, Tenterden & The Congress Theatre, Eastbourne
2012 ALAS Residency Matt Robert’s Arts, 25b Vyner Street, London
1994 Four Self Portrait Artists Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Curated exhibitions
2019 The Contemporary British Painting Prize, Menier Gallery, London
2019 Sara Dare Paintings, Rye Creative Centre, Rye East Sussex
2018 New Painting, The Crypt, St Marylebone Parish Church, London
2018 PaintLounge Berlin, Kühlhaus, Berlin
2017 PaintLounge London, Sluice Expo, London
2016 Slippery & Amorphous, Art Helix Brooklyn
2016 NAVIGATE: Re-envisioning Landscape, Ian Brown, Gary Mckay, Steph Rubin – contemporary approaches to describing the earth’s landscape
2016 We work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have, Alice Anderson, Phil Illingworth, Evy Jokhova
2015 Disturbance, Atom Gallery, London
2014 Le Voci Ritrovate, Castello di Monti, Corigliano d’Otranto, Italy supported by Hastings Council & the De La Warr Pavilion
2014 Correspond, Turps Art School, Taplow, London co-curated with Graham Carrick and Marcus Harvey
2012 Seeing in the Dark, The Fletcher Centre, Rye, East Sussex
Publications
Made in Britain, National Museum, Gdańsk, Poland, exhibition catalogue
Contemporary Masters of Britain, view exhibition catalogue here
Slippery & Amorphous NYC, view exhibition catalogue here
Slippery & Amorphous London, view exhibition catalogue here
Correspond 2016 catalogue
Contemporary Brtish Painting Summer Exhibition 2016, ISBN 9-781534-87-123 downloadable exhibition catalogue here
I don’t like art, selected essays by Graham Crowley, 2015, view Graham Crowley's Still Light essay online
Infinitely Precious Things view the exhibition catalogue online
Correspond exhibition catalogue, 2014, ISBN 978-0-9544296-5-2
Zeitgeist Open 2014, view the exhibition catalogue online
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 ISBN 978-1-907437-00-7
John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 18, National Merseyside Galleries and Museum, ISBN 0-906367-66-2
Royal Academy Schools student exhibition, introduction by Norman Rosenthal
Painting Today, Bonhams, foreward by Nicholas Usherwood
Ten years of the John Player Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery
Artist lectures and discussions
Paint Hard symposium, The Northern School of Art, November 2019
University of Leeds, November 2019
In conversation with Anna McNay at Resonance & wonder, Rye Creative Centre, 3 June 2017
Guest speaker at De La Warr Pavilion Artists Critique Group May 2017
Norwich University for the Arts
De La Warr Pavilion, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill
Jerwood Gallery, Hastings
Glasgow Artist Guild, with Marvin Gaye Chetwynd for the Glasgow Open House Festival
Disturbance, curator and artist discussion for International Womens’ Day 2014
Seeing in the dark, curators talk, The Fletcher Centre, Rye
Ivon Hitchens in context, curator’s talk, Rye Art Gallery, East Sussex
Correspond, artists’ discussion, Turps Art School, London
John Moores Painting Biennial, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Awards
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
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
Double Tree Hilton Park Lane London
