Patricia McParlin RCA

Patria McParlin studied at the University of Wales and the West Wales School of the Arts, and has recently been elected a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy. Although primarily a painter, her practice draws deeply from earlier work as a musician, writer, and theatre practitioner, resulting in a distinctive cross-disciplinary approach that spans film, installation, sculpture, and performance art.

She has exhibited widely, and her work is held in both private and corporate collections across the UK and internationally. Central to her practice is an exploration of art’s power to dissolve boundaries—existing simultaneously in the inner and outer worlds, the real and imagined, the present and the past. Her paintings seek an immediate synthesis of thought and emotion, challenging the divisions between what is seen and remembered, literal and metaphorical.

McParlin’s recent work focuses on the physicality of painting—on colour, form, space, texture, and the alchemical responses that emerge through direct engagement with her materials. Her mixed-media paintings are often described as symphonic: music for the eyes, where harmonious colour and sweeping, operatic brushstrokes evoke rhythm, atmosphere, and emotional depth.