Verse: inverse, obverse, converse, reverse
New Paintings by Paula MacArthur
10th April – 5th May
Preview and Artists Talk Thursday 12th April 6-8pm
Meet the artist 5th May 12 – 2pm
Installation Images curtesy of Paula MacArthur
Paula MacArthur’s paintings are a personal celebration of love & a reflection on the fragility of the ideals we yearn for. They are large scale, colour saturated memento-mori which aim to explore our desires & the fear of losing the object of our desire. The paintings encompass universal experiences & reflect upon the multilayered human responses within relationships. Painterly marks describing the light & luminescence of the objects are enlarged; ornate swirls morph into bodily gestures. The haptic quality of the brush marks & dripping paint give clues to the painter’s process & this ephemerality is suggestive of the short time we are here to experience the joy and pain of life.
Throughout her career as a painter MacArthur has worked with geometry in painting, in the Rococo series the ornamental curves conform to these precise mathematical patterns. These underlying structures give an innate harmony & a grounding connection back to Renaissance ideas of universal interconnectedness & understanding. This principle of inseparability & union reminds us of the balance in our relationships both personally, politically & universally.
Painter, Paula MacArthur trained at Loughborough College of Art & Design and The Royal Academy Schools and now works from her studio in Rye, East Sussex. Paula was a prize winner at John Moores 18 in 1993, first prize winner at NPG Portrait Award in 1989 & was shortlisted for WW Solo Award in 2014.
In 2017 Paula exhibited with Danish sound & performance artist Tine Louise Kortermand in ‘Resonance & Wonder’ at Rye Creative Centre & her work was part of the Priseman Seabrook Collection’s tour of four major museums in China. Group exhibitions include ‘Slippery and Amorphous’ which toured from London to Bushwick NYC in 2016, ‘Right Here, Right Now’ alongside artists Andrzej Jackowski, Chantal Joffe & Dave McKean, Creekside Open 2015 selected by Richard Deacon, The Zeitgeist Open 2015, 20 Painters – Phoenix Brighton 2014, Crash Salon – Charlie Dutton London 2014, Open West 2013 – Newark Park & Wilson Art Gallery Cheltenham, The Perfect Nude – Wimbledon Space, Exeter Phoenix & Charlie Smith London, What The Folk Say – Compton Verney 2011. Her work is held in several public & private collections including Jiangsu Art Museum – China, Baron & Baroness von Oppenheim, Priseman Seabrook Collection, RICS, & National Portrait Gallery, London.
Twitter: @PMacArthur
Instagram: @paula_macarthur
Facebook: @paulamacarthurpainter
