

Paula MacArthur Painter
Over the last six years I have been developing two series of paintings which are strongly interlinked both in process and concept. I see all of these works as over-sized momento-mori. They are large scale, often colour-saturated still lifes which to aim to explore the relationship between desire and denial. Alongside the paintings I use screen-printing to extend the images through exploration with colour, autographic mark making and photographic imagery. Almost invariably I discover and photograph my subjects in museums; collectors and curators before me have deemed these objects to be significant and this pre-selection loads history, value and power on top of my own personal associations. The Jewel series of paintings began as a personal celebration of love and a reflection on the fragility of the ideals we yearn for; these ideas quickly evolved to encompass universal desires and darker, sometimes deadly obsessions. The Rococo series developed out of these concerns and I continue to work on both series in tandem. Throughout my career as a painter I have worked with ‘secret’ geometry in painting. Both the facets of the precious stones and the stylised curves of the rococo ornamentation conform to these mathematical patterns. These underlying structures give an innate harmony and a grounding connection back to Renaissance ideas of universal interconnectedness. Zooming in on small details I then edit, enlarge and edit again throughout the painting process. An arabesque detail becomes a large, surging growth which is recognisable but unnameable. We can see however, that it is something temptingly shiny and expensive - or pretending to be - something rather ostentatious to the point of becoming vulgar perhaps. The faceted jewels are similarly balanced between figuration and abstraction and allow room for imagined pareidolia. Exquisite details are described in dissolving paint; these flamboyant, sensual swirls become monstrously flashy but are also celebratory monuments to conspicuous consumption. The difference between making the painting and looking at the painting allows me to access different parts of myself; the physical and something more meditative. After much consideration, making the first mark is a release;
 
when physically engaging with the paint I switch to a different mode of operation. I attack the painting process with energy, working with wet on wet layers, enjoying the automatic physicality of the gesture and the tactile qualities of the medium. I play with the paint pushing it to its thickest and thinnest limits, working with impasto beside oily pools and barely tinted turps washes. Stepping back, I watch each mark seep, bleed, drip or repel its neighbour and entering a more consciously thoughtful, quieter state I consider the painting and ideas again, in quite a different way, deciding where and how to begin again. From a distance the subject appears cohesive, even photographic, but as the viewer approaches each painting, the paint itself - the brush marks, layers and drips - come into focus, the illusion disappears and the viewer can experience the physicality of the process and is immersed in the expanse of luminous colour. The illusion of beauty and riches becomes just paint; it both defines and denies the subject and these objects of desire decay in front of our eyes. Paula MacArthur 2017
Still light by Graham Crowley The Luminous Paintings of Paula MacArthur "Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments." Adonais by Percy Bysshe Shelley written upon the death of John Keats in 1821
Paula MacArthur's paintings are a testimony to the primacy of vision. Light is not only the subject matter and content of Paula MacArthur's luminous and rather exquisite paintings but it's also their medium. Paula's paintings draw us into the now. For most of us; light can be many things, but for Paula; it's a celebration of the senses and an affirmation of values. This isn't simply a celebration of light but of life. The key to this sort of achievement is transformation. This is one of the principle elements that distinguish painting from illustration. This is the transformation from paint into light and space. A kind of latter day alchemy. Paula's paintings demonstrate that to paint about love - you have to paint lovingly; otherwise simply depicting acts of tenderness becomes illustration. It's no coincidence that Paula employs a method that eschews easy and mannered expressionistic rhetoric. Her recent work is closer in method to the meticulous paintings of Chuck Close. For her a sense of precision is essential. Light not only functions as space in painting but it can also lend the painting, what has been described as 'air'. Air in this context is the imagined space in which events 'unfold'. This is space as light and light as space. This is pictorial space; indeterminate and fictitious. This is the legacy of cubism. Paula also employs reflection and refraction to compress several shattered and partial spaces into one fictitious ‘event’. Diamonds are complex and contradictory objects. There are few
artefacts that are as demonised and fetishised as diamonds. Fewer still are as intimately bound to ideas of transformation and energy. The list of diamond's distant and not-so-distant 'cousins' is impressive. Whether it be a life forms like us; a sack of coal or a stick of graphite. Diamonds represent a massive contradiction and like fire, they have the potential to be both fascinating and dangerous. Simultaneously beguiling and deadly. Love over gold - Don Van Vliet Whenever I look at images of diamonds, I can't help but think about issues of affluence and poverty. Hatton Garden is a street distinguished only by security grills and litter; very Basildon. There's also the constant round of tabloid representations of Knightsbridge for the hard of thinking. And there's the rather tawdry dystopia that is reality TV. Shows which are epitomised by ITV2's 'The Only Way is Essex' , which for those of you who've been trapped in Antarctica recently, features talkative, narcissistic twenty-somethings banging on about shopping. They appear affluent and oblivious. Theirs is a celebration of conspicuous consumption. The wider world doesn't exist. The Edward Snowdens of this world need not apply. In 1960 Roy Lichtenstein painted 'The Ring'. Lichtenstein based his painting on a black and white advert for a 'budget' diamond engagement ring, so we mustn't loose sight of the fact that he didn't subsequently paint a diamond ring. He painted an image of an advertisement for an engagement ring, which is a very different matter. This is subsequently reflected in the work of Gerhard Richter. In Richter's paintings its the photograph rather than the image that is the subject. Second order meaning. The epitome of this culture of representation and misrepresentation has to be the rather creepy adverts for the diamond mining company de Beers. These adverts hark back to the world of Ian Fleming Taylor and James Bond. A world of second rate fiction. There's no mention of
the 'taint' that colours the reputation of diamonds. In the 1960's Liz Taylor and Richard Burton's shopping trips kept tabloid newspapers supplied with anecdotes which invariably involved pornographic descriptions of a 'million dollar diamond'. Then there's the nightmare world of child soldiers and 'blood' diamonds. It's almost impossible to regard diamonds in an aesthetic or aspirational manner without appearing to have amnesia. Light is synonymous with life. Which is probably why we take it for granted and why trying to comprehend light is almost impossible. It's rather like asking a fish what they think of water. Or more absurdly; whether they 'like' it. "I'd rather have roses on my table, than diamonds round my neck" Emma Goldman When I think of light and luminosity, I'm overcome by a sense of wellbeing. Something like happiness. In the same moment I begin to visualise Newton et al, at the height of the enlightenment, experimenting with prisms and mirrors. Splitting light; even the expression sounds heroic. Paula's is a new world of reflection and refraction. Not for her the lazy and rhetorical conventions of expressionism. As they now seem dated and absurd. Luminosity in painting is invariably absent from spontaneous or expressionistic painting. This is because painting in an expressionistic manner can't accommodate the rather systemic method of painting necessary to construct luminosity and transparency. For a painting to be luminous the pigment has to be suspended or partially dispersed, not saturated. This can only be undertaken in a considered and methodical manner. Even using white becomes problematic. "I'm a dirt person. I trust the dirt. I don't trust diamonds and gold" Eartha Kitt
The paintings of Paula MacArthur depict cut diamonds; but in such a manner that they appear to employ a cubist space. Paula's method of depiction relies upon transparency and indeterminacy; both apparent and poetic. This is close to the idea of the 'crazy diamond'* that Pink Floyd sang about. The idea of 'shining on' being synonymous with inspiration and vision. Paula's paintings embrace and celebrate the 'primacy of vision'. For too long painters have allowed narrators to 'account' for their work. Paula's subject matter is also a vehicle for content which is light relayed through light. Aldous Huxley in one of his many essays draws a striking parallel between the cutting and finishing of gem stones and the potential of painting to 'split light'. He singles these two activities out as they both (in the right hands) seem to be able to 'fashion' nature - or more correctly light. This is what Suzi Gablik would later refer to in her 1995 book as the re-enchantment of art. For Paula this has meant employing characteristics that are intrinsically painterly and unique to painting. Something that would, I'm sure, have earned Clement Greenberg's1 approval. "Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun, Shine on you crazy diamond.
 Now there's that look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky. Shine on you crazy diamond." - Pink Floyd If Huxley had lived longer he might have added the cathode ray tube, television and the computer screen. Luminosity isn't the same thing as bright or colourful. It's about energy and life. The kind of life we occasionally glimpse in direct sunlight and the kind of light we can imagine. The 'light at the end of the tunnel' as 'Half Man, Half Biscuit' claim turns out to be the light of an oncoming train that'll eventually maim and kill you. Luminosity is the sense that an object is a source of light not merely a
reflector. Most paintings until the mid/late 19th century appeared to exude light. Modernism's focus upon the 'thing itself' meant that many established aspects of painting had come to be regarded as limitations and as such were cast aside. Luminosity was such a casualty. "Poetry is indispensable - if only I knew what it was for" - Jean Cocteau.
a toxic mix of capital, celebrity and media. Paula's paintings act as a simile and draw our attention to the art market as a 'diamond mine' What lingers after seeing these extraordinary, luminous paintings is a sense of joy. This is a celebration of light, life and love. Graham Crowley - London - 2014
In Rembrandt's 'Night Watch' what appears to be Rembrandt's wife Saskia* strides across the centre of the painting from left to right. She illuminates her surroundings. it's as if she has become a 'beacon'. She is the militia's inspiration. This is a painting in which light not only reveals and depicts, but is also symbolic. The 'Night Watch' represents nothing less than the birth of a nation. The 'Night Watch' is established as a national monument; an icon. Up there with the Eiffel Tower, the clock tower of Big Ben and the Statue of Liberty. The fact that light is held in awe is self-evident. Without it life would not only be inconceivable but untenable. Light features in almost all religions and broadly signifies some aspect of deity or godhead. It was Jesus Christ who famously said 'I am the light of the world'. In a more secular world light is also associated with health and happiness; radiance. From the sheen of something freshly polished to the blinding light of a nuclear explosion. Pure energy. Existence is often referred to as “a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” 3 "The light that work sheds is a beautiful light, which, however, only shines with real beauty if it is illuminated by yet another light" Ludwig Wittgenstein It's become a nostalgic fallacy to regard art as a liberal, humanist project. It's a market - pure and simple as markets are without morality. During the last twenty years the art market has become ubiquitous. The art market like any market is without morality. It feeds
There are problems in these times, oil on canvas, 2014, private collection
Everything I’ve had but culdn’t keep, oil on canvas, 140 x 140 cm, 2012, £3000
Let me be your eyes, oil on canvas, 140 x 140 cm, 2012, £3000
Who’s to say that I’m unhappy, oil on canvas, 200 x 300 cm, 2015, £8000
Let me hear you say the words I want to hear, oil on canvas, 200 x 300 cm, 2014, £8000
Now and forever until the end of time, oil on canvas, 200 x 300 cm, 2015, ÂŁ8000
But I know that you are mine to keep, oil on canvas, 140 x 140 cm, 2012, £3000
Promise me one thing, oil on canvas, 140 x 140 cm, 2012, £3000
You may get to touch her, oil on linen, 120 x 120 cm, 2016, £2400
We can love one another oil on linen, 120 x 120 cm, 2016, £2400
Just how I feel, oil on linen, 80 x 60 cm, 2017, £700
I will take care of you, oil on linen, 80 x 60 cm, 2017, £700
Get whatever you need, oil on linen, 120 x 120 cm, 2017, £2400
Words can’t be that strong, oil on linen, 120 x 120 cm, 2017, £2400
Biography Paula MacArthur was born in Enfield in the UK in 1967. She trained Loughborough College of Art and Design and The Royal Academy Schools, completing her studies in 1993. She now lives on the South Coast of England and works from her studio in Rye, East Sussex. As a young student she had success as a portrait painter exhibiting at the Mall Galleries with the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and in 1989 she won the John Player Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery and subsequently was commissioned to paint a portrait of double Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry, Frederick Sanger.
In 1993 she was one of the prize winners at John Moores 18 and was invited to give a lecture and later be Artist in Residence at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. After having children her subject matter began to change and her work developed into the style she is now recognised for. Solo exhibitions 2017 2014
Resonance & wonder, songs & paintings by Tine Louise Kortermand & Paula MacArthur, Rye Creative Centre Gallery, Infinitely Precious Things, VJB Arts, city of London download catalogue and see Anna McNay's review
It would mean so much to me, oil on linen, 120 x 120 cm, 2017, £2400
Selected group exhibitions 2017 Contemporary Masters from the East of England: 35 Painters from the East of England, Suffolk 2016 Slippery & Amorphous NYC, Sluice Exchange Rates International Exposition, download catalogue 2016 Contemporary British Painting Summer Exhibition, Quay Arts, Isle of Wight download catalogue 2016 Slippery & Amorphous London download catalogue 2016 Correspond, touring exhibition to Halifax, Rye & Edinburgh read the accompanying essay by Phil King 2015 Creekside Open, APT Gallery, London, selected by Richard Deacon 2014 Zeitgeist Open, ASC, London, selected by Rosalind Davies, Annabel Tilley, Andrew Bick & Juan Bolivar download catalogue 2014 Correspond, London, curated by Marcus Harvey, Graham Carrick & Paula MacArthur read the review by Charley Peters 2014 20 Painters, Phoenix Brighton, download Painters' Painters by Maria Bonner 2014 Crash Open Salon, Charlie Dutton Gallery, London, selected by Phillip Allen and Neil Tait 2013 The Open West, Newark Park, review by Sunny Cheung 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, Compton Verney, Warwickshire 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, 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 1988 Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Mall Galleries London
Publications Contemporary Masters of Britain, view exhibition catalogue here Slippery & Amorphous NYC, view exhibition catalogue here Contemporary Brtish Painting Summer Exhibition 2016 view catalogue I don’t like art, selected essays by Graham Crowley, 2015, view online Infinitely Precious Things view the exhibition catalogue online Zeitgeist Open 2014, view the exhibition catalogue online What the Folk Say exhibition catalogue, Compton Verney John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 18, 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 In conversation with Anna McNay listen to the conversation here Guest speaker at De La Warr Pavilion Artists Critique Group Norwich University for the Arts Jerwood Gallery, Hastings Glasgow Artist Guild, with Marvin Gaye Chetwynd Ivon Hitchens in context, curator’s talk, Rye Art Gallery, East Sussex John Moores Painting Biennial, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool Awards 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 Goodnestone Park, Kent Priseman Seabrook Collection Chadwicks, Enterprise Centre, UEA Campus, Norwich National Portrait Gallery, London Baron and Baroness von Oppenheim Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Double Tree Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, London
Paula MacArthur 2017Š paula-macarthur.com paulamacarthur@me.com