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paula rego - the dance
paula rego
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The dark nights are drawing in at Tate Britain.

There is something ugly about Paula Rego’s paintings. The clunky, unrefined figures that made her famous in the 80s are undeniably skilful but equally repellent. A new installation of her work at Tate Britain, however, highlights the surprising variety of Rego’s career. The mini retrospective is split across three rooms – Rego’s early political collages from the 60s, the large family narratives of the 80s and recent large pastel triptychs.

The first room is the most exciting and surprising. Her collages have a truly free sense of chaos, bright colour and curves. They openly attack the fascist regime that dominated Portugal when the artist was young. It isn’t surprising, considering the oppressive environment, that her critical collages are full of mythological narrative and abstract forms. Her epic approach only makes her confrontational politics more effective.


Detail from Triptych and Bride

By room two, that freedom has been constrained in a strange world of grey lumpy characters staring out of the canvas from their weird world. The paintings are openly narrative but the stories are not obvious. The Family, for example, depicts a man being stripped by girls. There is something disturbingly sexual in the women - the inverse of the paedophilic interiors of Balthus. Here the girls are active, not objectified. The women in her paintings are almost obscene but entirely knowing.

Rego’s recent works, in pastels rather than heavy acrylics, change approach again. Her palette lightens, moving away from sludge greys. The Pillowman (2004) explores Martin McDonagh’s play about an author accused of child murder because of his gruesome fairy tales. The brilliant pastels depict a giant black ragged man in different scenarios with girls. His oversized lips and stunted legs dominate the triptych, hinting at the darker side of childhood and imagination. Rego’s Pillowman is one of the most hypnotic characters in modern art.


Francesca Gavin 12 November 04
Paula Rego is at Tate Britain, London, until 02 January 05.

See Paula Rego image gallery for full image credits.
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