Celia Paul’s essay Painting Myself features in The New York Review of Books

'When I look in the mirror, I can’t see myself. Perhaps the difficulty I experience is due to the static posture I must assume in front of the glass. If I glance away, I’m gone—like a butterfly escaping the net. I can set up mirrors to view all sides of my head. In profile I look as though I were focused on something else, someone else. Looking at myself from the back, I am surprised by the roundness of my shoulders. But when I see myself obliquely in this way, it isn’t a true encounter: I can’t engage with myself.

When I first started to draw at the age of fifteen, I made schematic attempts at self-representation. I depicted the bump on the end of my nose, my long neck, and my dark eyebrows. The resulting drawings were lifeless. I felt freer when I worked from other people I knew well—better than I knew myself.'

Image: Celia Paul, Painter Against Water, 2024
Oil on canvas
63.5 x 55.9 cm
25 x 22 in
© Celia Paul
Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro

March 13 2025