Solo exhibition catalogue with an essay by Graham Crowley can be viewed here; http://issuu.com/paulamacarthur/docs/catalogue_infinitely_precious_thing Paula MacArthur's recent series of large scale canvases focuses on jewels. 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
Solo exhibition catalogue with an essay by Graham Crowley can be viewed here; http://issuu.com/paulamacarthur/docs/catalogue_infinitely_precious_thing Paula MacArthur's recent series of large scale canvases focuses on jewels. 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 Banana Painting Program
1993 Royal Academy Schools, Post-Graduate Diploma, Fine Art Painting
1990 Loughborough College of Art and Design, BA Hons, Fine Art Painting
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
Current & Forthcoming exhibitions
2014 Infinitely Precious Things, solo exhibition
VJB Arts, 60 Threadneedle Street, London, EC2R 8HP
24 January - 9 May, weekdays and weekends, 8am - 9pm
Solo Exhibitions
2014 Infinitely Precious Things, VJB Arts at 60 Threadneedle Street, London, EC2R 8HP
2010 Amusement Paintings, Brighton Media Centre, East Sussex
2009 Showtime, The Coningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham St, London, W1T 4RJ
2009 Seaside Special, solo exhibition, The Arts Forum, St Leonards, East Sussex
Selected Group Exhibitions
2014 20 Painters, Phoenix Gallery, 10-14 Waterloo Place, Brighton
2014 The Print Garden, Rye Art Gallery, High Street, Rye, East Sussex
2013 Christmas BOGOF, WW Gallery, 34/35 Hatton Garden, London, EC1N 8DX
2013 Crash Open Salon, Charlie Dutton Gallery, 1a Princeton Street, London WC1R 4AX
2013 Navigate, The Old Cinema, Bexhill, in association with the De La Warr Pavillion
2013 The Femail Project, The Article Gallery, Birmingham City University
2013 The Open West, Newark Park Gloucestershire, touring to Cheltenham Art Gallery
2013 Covert and Obscured, Frances Bardsley Gallery, Romford
2013 Tasty Modern, Schwartz Gallery, London
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 Pushing Print, The Pie Factory, Margate
2012 The Perfect Nude, touring to Wimbledon Space, Exeter Phoenix Gallery &
Charlie Smith London
2012 Summer Games, Nolias Gallery, 60 Great Suffolk Street, London SE1 0BL
2012 3x3, Cultivate, Vyner Street, London
2011 What the Folk Say, 26 March - December 2011, Compton Verney, Warwickshire
2010 Remasters, The Rag Factory, 16 Heneage Street, Off Brick Lane, London E1
2010 A Thousand Words; an installation for Art in Romney Marsh, St. Nicholas’ Church
2010 London Festival Fringe Art Award, The Gallery, 3 Bedfordbury, 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
Publications
Infinitely Precious Things, solo exhibition catalogue, http://issuu.com/paulamacarthur/docs/catalogue_infinitely_precious_thing
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; Portraits from around the world, compiled by Craig Kerrecoe
John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 18, National Merseyside Galleries and Museums
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
Selected Collections
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