The Portuguese-British artist Paula Rego (1935-2022) is one of the most important and exciting figurative painters of recent decades. The Kunstmuseum Basel is organizing the artist's first exhibition in Switzerland, presenting key works from over half a century of her oeuvre.
The fabulous world of Portuguese-British artist Paula Rego is a frenzy of images - full of abysmal humor, unapologetically drastic and haunting. Rego's work is particularly powerful when it comes to the fates of women. Characters who were the perfect princess at Walt Disney are completely normal women in her work. Women who care, help and cope with everyday life become worthy of a picture in her work. What there isn't is a happy ending. Over the decades, Rego has created complex, emotionally charged scenes that seem like the stuff of nightmares: they provide a deep insight into human relationships and social, political and sexual power dynamics. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung called her works "crime scenes".
Paula Rego, The Family, 1988, Acrylic on Paper on Canvas © Private Collection, courtesy of Eykyn Maclean
Paula Rego was born in Lisbon. Against the backdrop of Antonio de Oliveiro Salazar's dictatorship, her father came to the conclusion that this was not a country for women. Rego therefore studied in London, where she settled permanently in 1975. With brush and pastels, but above all with biting mockery, satire, theatricality and an uncanny flair for storytelling, she went on to create visually stunning works: her characters are trapped in fantastic or disturbing worlds, haunted by the experiences and conflicts that women still face in our society. Rego deals with themes such as tyranny, Britain's involvement in the Iraq war and the tightening of abortion laws. Her imagery is unmistakable, gruesome and often brutal; her work is immensely compelling, magnificent and frighteningly relevant.
Rego has long been a star in Portugal and Great Britain. The comprehensive special exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel is the first presentation of her oeuvre in this country. Her cosmos of paintings, doll objects and graphics is presented in a series of thematically structured rooms. They are all sites of power struggles: starting with the self and moving on to the private circle of the family, relationships between the sexes and political violence.
September 28, 2024 to February 2, 2025
https://kunstmuseumbasel.ch
Paula Rego, War, 2003, Pastel on paper on aluminum © Tate: Presented by the artist (Building the Tate Collection) 2005
