By Mia Funk & Grace Heinz
In the art of Celia Paul, painting the physical world is also a way of bearing witness to the spirit level. Born in India and raised by Christian missionaries in England, as much as she paints the people she has known and loved, the transcendental is never far behind. The site of these paintings is her flat in London. A bare room bathed in cloudy light. Early morning or twilight. Timeless and weightless, populated by a Colony of Ghosts, these paintings are the opposite of Lucian Freud’s. Although both are preoccupied with interior portraits of their friends, Freud’s heavy works, knotted with browns, are of the earth. Paul’s seem weightless, to belong to the air and sea. Freud painted copious details. She paints the essence. Her rooms are almost devoid of details.
She was in a decade-long relationship with Freud and had a child with him. She met him when she was studying at Slade. He was a visiting tutor. She was eighteen and he was fifty-five.
Freud is one of the Colony of Ghosts, as is Francis Bacon, and Frank Auerbach (her son Frank was named after him), and Michael Andrews. A sort of Last Supper by gaslight. The ghosts in other paintings are Celia herself and her Sisters by the Sea.
Colony of Ghosts is on display at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London from March 14th to April 17, 2025. The exhibition covers the recent oil paintings of Celia Paul. The paintings examine the past. How do we reconcile our current selves with the way we used to be? Does time truly change us, or do we fundamentally remain the same? Paul explores these questions, writing that “My young self and I— we are the same person. I can stretch out my old hand— with its age spots— and hold my young unblemished hand.” There remains an element of transformation for her— the young becomes old, the vibrant becomes faded— yet she maintains that we can still see these past versions of ourselves.
Reclining Painter is a testament to this. A woman rests on a chaise longue, staring directly at her audience. The woman’s stare is sobering, yet soft. She looks on with tender regret. The colors are dreamy and faded. The white of the woman’s dress blends with the white of her background. The painting of Celia, as it hangs in the Victoria Miro gallery, is defiantly facing Freud and the male artists she knew and loved. It is impossible to read her expression. With the passing of Frank Auerbach at the end of last year, they are now all gone. Paul remains, bearing witness to a passing era of British art and painting into the light.
