Paula Rego is an artist of astonishing power with a unique and unforgettable aesthetic. Taking its cues from the artist, this fascinating study invites us to reflect on the complexities of storytelling on which Rego-s work draws, emphasizing both the stories the pictures tell, and how it is that they are told. Deryn Rees-Jones sets interpretations of the pictures in the context of Rego-s personal and artistic development across sixty years. We see how Rego-s art intersects with the work of both the literary and the visual, and come to understand her rich and textured layering of reference: her use of the Old Masters; fiction, fairy tales and poems; the folk traditions of Rego-s native Portugal; and her wider engagement with politics, feminism and more. The result is a highly original work that addresses urgent and topical questions of gender, subject and object, self and other.
