Pensive and radiating silence, Paul’s self-portraits are also alive with movement. By Laura Cumming.
The painter sits erect for her self-portrait as a solitary soul. Her long, narrow figure, slender of neck, head lifted, appears motionless and secret as a heron. Soft grey light flows around her, tinged with the pale gold and lemon that find their way into her flowing smock. It is an image of extreme gentleness, and yet the sheer tenacity of the likeness is what strikes – emerging out of the haze in bright fractions, bit by bit. The painting radiates silence.
There are several new self-portraits in this show and they all look like late works, the fruit of many seasons. Yet Celia Paul is only in her 50s. Born in India in 1959, educated at the Slade and internationally admired for her elegiac depictions of the people she loves (Paul never paints commissions), she has increasingly turned to face herself. The aura changes but not the pose – straight-backed, facing forwards, hands gathered in her lap, the long smock resembling a nun’s habit, the delicate face dense with thought. She looks both ancient and ageless…
