Paula MacArthur

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 she won the JPS Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in 1989. Recent exhibition highlights include '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) and on completing her studies at the Royal Academy Schools, her work travelled to Germany for a post-graduate show 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’. Rye, East Sussex & London