Celia Paul

Celia Paul, born in 1959 in Thiruvananthapuram, India, is a renowned British painter celebrated for her intimate and emotionally charged portraits. Paul’s work focuses on depicting herself, her family, and close friends rather than professional models, often exploring themes of physicality and emotional connection. Her technique, particularly in etching, allows for expressive mark-making, evoking the spontaneity of sketches. Her subjects revolve around family, particularly her mother and sisters, reflecting themes of memory and the private lives of women. Paul’s quiet, contemplative works are characterised by simple, undecorated settings, with her prints, particularly soft ground etchings, mirroring the soft outlines and intimacy of her paintings. She has exhibited her work across Europe, the Middle East, and America, with notable solo exhibitions at the Bernard Jacobson Gallery, Marlborough Fine Art, and the Victoria Miro Gallery. Her inclusion in Tate Britain’s All Too Human exhibition in 2018 and exhibitions at Yale Centre for British Art and the Huntington Museum further solidified her reputation. In 2020, Paul’s memoir Self-Portrait was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Christopher Bland Prize.