Telling Tales With Paula Rego

TWO NEW EXHIBITIONS FROM THE WORLD-FAMOUS ARTIST REVEAL THAT – EVEN AT THE AGE OF 82 – HER STORYTELLING IS STILL EVOLVING. NATALIE MILNER TAKES A LOOK AT HER LATEST WORKS.

- Natalie Milner

Enter the North London studio of Dame Paula Rego and you would be forgiven for thinking you’d strolled onto the set of a puppet show. Dozens of ‘dollies’ – handmade models she has used for her works since 2003 – line the walls waiting for their next big break. Created by the artist, along with her assistant and friend Lila Nunes and granddaughter Carmen Mueck, the dolls’ wire armatures allow for postural changes. Some can even be suspended from the ceiling, while the fabric stuffing and papier-mâché faces offer a human-like quality for her to capture.

“I found I got very interested in making props, creatures that I use as if they are people,” said the artist in Paula Rego: Secrets and Stories, a BBC Two documentary directed by her son, the filmmaker Nick Willing. “They are people to me and I find I’m more and more interested in… creating these creatures. And I mix them with people.” It’s this combination of life models – often family and friends taking on personas – and ‘dollies’ that give her paintings a sense of the uncanny. The works are a result of direct observation, drawing on the techniques nurtured at the Slade School of Art, yet they also embody a fantasy world..

FAIRY TALES