Martha Parsey, born in London, is a painter, filmmaker and actress who studied Fine Art and Film at Central St. Martins College of Art, the University of the Arts London, the University of the Arts Berlin and the German Film and Television Academy Berlin.
Her films on Francis Bacon, made in collaboration with David Sylvester, have been screened in major Bacon Retrospectives at the ICA and Hayward Gallery, London, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, Haus der Kunst, Munich and at Ordovas Gallery, New York. 
Shortlisted for the Lexmark European Art Prize and the Sovereign European Art Prize, her paintings have been exhibited widely in the UK, Europe and the US, with her work in a number of prestigous collections including the Ovitz Family Collection, the Zabludowicz Collection and the Musée National d’art Moderne, Paris. 
Martha has appeared in a wide variety of films, television, theatre and radio alongside John Hurt, Richard Burton, Cyril Cusack, Sinéad Cusack, Peter O’Toole, Faye Dunnaway, Peter Cushing and Sir Anthony Scher at the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Royal Court, The Old Vic, and in a number of British, European and US Film and Television. Here most recent appearance was in Ken McMullen’s award-winning film ‘Hamlet Within‘ with Ian McKellen, John Shrapnel and Jacques Derrida.
In 2018 Martha founded MPHQ Project Space London I Cologne exhibiting painting, sculpture, photography and art-cinema in London and Cologne and founded MPHQ Pictures, an independent art-film production company.
She is currently working on the publication of David Sylvester’s interviews with Francis Bacon 1971-1979 and is in post-production on the films ‘BACON’S HISTORIES: Study for a Portrait’ shot in Greece, Paris, London, Spain, South Africa, Egypt and Germany and ‘Shakespeare’s Ghost’, an interview with Ken McMullen on the lasting legacy of Shakespeare and the creation of the Shakespearean myth.

I like Martha Parsey’s paintings for their electric charge, their bitter taste and their threat of erotic danger’

David Sylvester