Paul was born in 1959 in Trivandrum, India, and now lives in London. She makes intense yet ruminative paintings of people close to her, the spaces in which she lives and works, and landscapes of poignant significance. Her paintings are made from life but are pregnant with memory, poetry and emotion, which she imbues in her distinctive painterly language. Her art possesses a rare tranquillity in which one perceives deep feeling; Paul wrote in her memoir that her paintings are “so private and personal that there’s almost a ‘Keep Out’ sign in front of them”.
At once a singular figure yet also connected to strands of recent and historic figurative painting in Britain, she has been admired widely throughout her career but only recently been recognised as a major figure in British art of the past 40 years. She discusses the fact that she began painting before she knew about art, but when she was introduced to Old and Modern Masters, she discovered El Greco and Paul Cezanne, who remain important to her today.
She also reflects on the compassion in Rembrandt and Vincent van Gogh, the stillness and scale of Agnes Martin, and the elementary power of the novels of the Brontë sisters. She describes her response in painting to the artists of the School of London, including Lucian Freud, with whom she was once in a relationship, and Frank Auerbach.
- Celia Paul: Colony of Ghosts, Victoria Miro, London, until 17 April 2025
- Celia Paul: Works 1975–2025, published by MACK, £150 (hb)
This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the arts and culture platform.
Bloomberg Connects offers access to a vast range of international cultural organisations through a single click, with new guides being added regularly. They include the Yale Center for British Art, which is among the many organisations on the platform that have shown Celia Paul’s work. If you explore Bloomberg Connects, you’ll find that the guide to the Center has in-depth features about its exhibitions.
They include JMW Turner: Romance and Reality, the first show there for more than 30 years to focus on one of the greatest of all British artists. Hear curators and conservators talking about some of the key works, from the early picture of the Chateau of St Michel in Bonneville, Savoy, to the painting of Inverary Pier on Loch Fyne in Scotland, a typically ethereal and otherworldly image in Turner’s late style. There are also extensive audio features about the Center’s collections, including masterpieces by John Constable, Gwen John and William Blake, among many others.