Celia Paul

Why this artist matters now

Celia Paul paints intimate, psychologically charged portraits of her immediate family and herself, working primarily in muted, layered oil on canvas. Born in India and based in London, her subjects are almost exclusively drawn from her closest circle, rendered with a stillness and restraint that gives each figure an atmosphere of quiet intensity. Her work is held in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London. The compressed emotional register of her paintings, achieved through pale tonality and sparse composition, sets her apart from more expressive figurative contemporaries.