.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Writing on Celia Paul’s work, art historian Hattie Spires comments: ‘Paul’s intimate, quiet portraits depict people as if wanting to bring their inner life to the surface’ (H. Spires, exhibition catalogue, All Too Human: Bacon, Freud, and a Century of Painting Life, Tate, 2018).
My Mother Facing is a contemplative example of this very specific interiority that Paul achieves in her portraits of those she is closest with. Importantly, Paul remained focussed on the close relationship between mother and child throughout her life. Conceived as a pair with another painting, My Mother Turning, the present work depicts the seated figure of the artist’s mother, Pamela, emerging from an ethereal and mysterious surrounding of radiating light.
My Mother Facing is a contemplative example of this very specific interiority that Paul achieves in her portraits of those she is closest with. Importantly, Paul remained focussed on the close relationship between mother and child throughout her life. Conceived as a pair with another painting, My Mother Turning, the present work depicts the seated figure of the artist’s mother, Pamela, emerging from an ethereal and mysterious surrounding of radiating light.