“I paint to give fear a face”
Paula Rego
Paula Rego used her practice to directly confront that which haunted her, whether from within her own personal life or from the socio-political world within which she lived. From this framework, Palmer Gallery’s upcoming exhibition Painting Fear, brings a small group of Rego’s works into dialogue with three contemporary female figurative painters - Nell Brookfield, Kerrie Addy, and Tess McMillan - who share her interest in politics, feminism, history and the absurd, using painting as a means of navigating fear and uncertainty.
Rego was one of the most significant figurative painters of the twentieth century, and her impact on the way women and their lived experience were depicted continues to shape contemporary artists working today. She was steadfast in confronting the most troubling events of her time - often head on - having lived through distressing moments in history, particularly around women’s rights and gender politics; From her adolescence under the brutal Salazar dictatorship and its Deus, Pátria e Família ideology, which confined women to a purely reproductive role, to the 1998 referendum on abortion and women’s rights in Portugal, to human trafficking, genital mutilation and domestic violence inflicted upon women.
The consequence was the creation of some of the most radical and politically charged artworks of the time, tempered by a bold visual language which referenced art historical figures but subverted them through Rego’s own social context and a strong sense of female empowerment. The other artists in this exhibition find their own point of connection to Rego’s work, with a thread of anxiety, fear and vulnerability running through their practices - they too draw on lived personal experiences and wider historical and political undercurrents.
A private view will take place at the gallery on Thursday 19th November, 6-8pm