Martha Parsey

Martha Parsey




Martha Parsey, born in London in 1973, studied painting and film at Central St Martins and the London College of Printing, as well as at the Hochschule der Künste and the German Film and Television Academy, Berlin. Her films on Francis Bacon have been screened at the ICA and Hayward Gallery, London, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and the Haus der Kunst, Munich. Shortlisted for the 2003 Lexmark European Art Prize and the 2005 Sovereign European Art Prize, her paintings have been exhibited widely in solo exhibitions in Berlin, Cologne and London as well as the Museum Ludwig, Aachen. Her work is in a number of prestigious collections worldwide including the Ovitz Family Collection and the Zabludowicz Collection. Martha Parsey lives and works in Cologne.




"Artist’s Statement

‘My paintings are large and figurative, often diptychs or a number of canvasses, made without preliminary sketches or any other devices- just using my eyes and a pencil, drawing straight onto the bare canvas. Working on bare canvas means that whatever I paint remains. This gives the process of painting an element of risk, a kind of performance in the making of it. Although areas of my paintings are rendered in great detail I allow unpainted areas to give the viewer room to form a discourse with the image, granting them access to the inner world of the picture, whereby the pictures take on a life in the eyes and mind of the viewer.’"