PAULA
REGO
Fondation Calouste
Gulbenkian
Délégation en
France
Centre Calouste
Gulbenkian
25 January - 1 April
2012
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in partnership with the
Paula Rego Foundation/Casa das Histórias, presents in Paris a
representative exhibition of the highly renowned British artist
Paula Rego, born in Lisbon in 1935. The artist, who works on
memories of her childhood spent in Portugal, trained as an artist
in London, where she lives.
Bringing together a collection of works created between 1988 and
2010, a period representing the artist's total maturity, the
exhibition, which is in no way a retrospective, centres on a
selection of the thematic series which have the most contributed to
her international recognition.
With a selection of paintings, drawings and prints, as part of a
narrative which intertwines with other artistic disciplines like
literature, cinema or drama, and the multiplicity of her resources,
both scholarly and popular, Paula Rego appears as a figurative
artist who masters both the technical tools and the aesthetic
resources of the old masters, developing an artistic language which
speaks to our time, disrupting or provoking, questioning and
altering the spectator. The series on abortion (Untitled) (1998) or
the Mulher Cão (Dog woman) (1994), where women are portrayed,
unexpectedly, with an aura of energy, determination and power, are
examples of her potent effect on our awareness and behaviour.
The themes explore the numerous and complex fields of human
relations, the dark and emotional side of their nature and the
ambiguity of their actions, filtered through a militant feminine
awareness. One might think that it represents an unreservedly
feminine point of view, but it is, above all, Paula Rego's point of
view that is expressed, unique and distinctive. In 1998 the artist
painted an angel, protector and avenger, a feminine figure carrying
sword and sponge, symbols of the Passion. The drama is played out
around her under the merciless scrutiny of her emotions.