Frank Paul: Artist hopes to pen own chapter in family history

There is an elephant in the room when you talk to Frank Paul.

The day before the interview, an email arrives asking to avoid "mention of his uncle as this has turned out to be a sensitive subject".

I'm also warned that he would much rather talk about his work as an artist than his family connections.

Then Paul himself tells a story during the interview: "I remember an occasion when I was at university and was in a student bar. Someone I had never met came up to me and said,'I hear you're related to Sigmund Freud, come and have a drink with us', as though that in itself was reason enough to make someone want to get to know me as a person. I said, 'No thank you' and walked out."

Paul, whose debut exhibition is being held at York's Bohemia Galleries from tomorrow, is the son of artist Celia Paul and perhaps our greatest contemporary figurative artist, Lucian Freud. His uncle was Clement Freud, his cousins are Emma and Matthew Freud and his great- grandfather was the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.

At the risk of bringing the interview to a premature conclusion, there is no getting away from it. If you decide to be an artist, and you specialise in drawing pictures created by your subconscious and drawn from your imagination – and your father is Lucian Freud and your great-grandfather is Sigmund Freud – you're going to have to talk about your forebears and journalists are likely to ask about them.

To be fair, Paul doesn't respond by walking out when the rather large pachyderm is eventually, carefully, pointed out to him, although conversation about his famous father and great-grandfather is always conducted with an eye on finding a route away from the subject.

"Sometimes I feel quite strongly about it and other times I don't," says Paul.

"I don't mind talking about it too much, what I mind is if people see who my parents are as the dominant aspect of my character, as something that is the most interesting thing about me.

"I haven't really had much exposure yet as an artist, but any exposure I have had, has always mentioned my parents.

"It does slightly annoy me, it's as though sometimes people think my work can't stand alone."

Clearly, time for another question about the work.

Paul always loved to draw as a youngster and as a child had the notion that when he grew up he would like to do something that involved drawing.

His work then, as today, is created mainly in Biro and is drawn from imagination.

"I tend to start with facial features, I often start with the eyes of a character, but have no idea what the rest will look like," he says.

"My work tends to be quite surreal as it is all drawn from imagination. I have always found it quite gratifying that when I was younger people thought my work was quite disturbing and I think subconsciously that was something that I decided to build on.

"I also remember my mum saying that something I had drawn was quite good and feeling quite pleased about that. It was something I found quite gratifying."

One wonders – not aloud – what Sigmund Freud would have made of this.

At school in Canterbury, Paul would often switch off during lessons, to concentrate on his drawings, but it turned out that art was not going to be his favourite subject.

"I didn't like the way that Art was taught. At GCSE and A-level, it seemed the most important thing to the teachers was that we had to draw in a variety of styles and each thing we did had to reference directly a particular style or artist."

The experience of learning in this way turned Paul off the idea of art school, although he now wonders that his "preconception of what it would be like was slightly dystopian". Instead of art school, he attended Cambridge where he studied German and Russian before switching to Arabic.

Although he has recently begun to move into using oils, the majority of Paul's drawings on display in York from tomorrow have been created using Biro.

"The attraction of working with Biro is that it is so convenient. I can be laying in bed, have an idea, whip out a sketch pad and start drawing," he says.

He also reveals that a recent mishap means that oils are no longer easily accessible – he was painting on his aunt's roof and stepped in oils, not realising he had done so until he trailed vibrant colours all over the house. "I have to travel across London now to a studio if I want to use oils."

While the majority of the exhibition is made up of the surreal ballpoint pen images, there are a couple of portraits in oils – which leads inevitably to another question about his father.

As well as being one of contemporary Britain's most famous painters, Lucian Freud is also famed for the number of children he has fathered by a number of different women.

Paul says that he sees his father only occasionally – "It averages out to about once a month" – and that he has no idea if he will attend the exhibition.

"I was not very close to my dad as a child, never really saw that much of him. My mum was around much more and I never really felt intimidated by the idea of showing her my pictures, even though I was very aware that she was an artist and aware of my father's work.

"I was always awed when I looked at my mum's work. I always thought the way she created atmosphere was amazing."

Of his great-grandfather, he says: "I'm not sure that there is any direct connection, I don't feel in any sense indebted to him – but then I'm not very familiar with his work, beyond a few case studies. If there is anything that connects my work with his, then it's not something I am aware of," he says.

Given that Paul is so clearly uncomfortable discussing family matters, why not resist the temptation of art? He says that it was the only thing that made him happy and that even were he an accountant, he would

still have had his famous father and great-grandfather.

"It's never been a particular burden – more a mild inconvenience," he says.

"I have sometimes been worried about my work being judged in the context of who my family is, rather than its content."

Maybe with his first exhibition opening, that process will begin.

The Drawings of Frank Paul Exhibition runs from tomorrow to October 9 at Bohemia Galleries, Gillygate, York. Frank Paul will be at the gallery tomorrow from 10am to 5pm.