Paula Rego: On depression and shame
VAULT spoke with acclaimed Portuguese-British artist Paula Rego ahead of her first major solo exhibition with Victoria Miro.
Image credit: Paula Rego, Depression No. 1, 2007, pastel on paper 68.6 x 101 cm. Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro © Paula Rego
Two years ago my mother had a terrible fall at home, the consequence of a heart stoppage. She blacked out and came to in a pool of blood. It was late at night and my father, who was then 93 years old, could not pick her up. An ambulance was called and she went to hospital with a broken eye socket, split lip and cracked teeth. She was black and blue and swollen for weeks. The worst part is that I slept soundly through the night and missed my father’s numerous calls. It was not my greatest daughter moment.
I was reminded of this incident while looking at the work for Paula Rego’s forthcoming exhibition with Victoria Miro, The Forgotten. Something similar happened to the acclaimed London-based Portuguese artist in 2017. Rego, then 82 years old, fell and seriously injured her face. It was a deeply unsettling experience, but one in which she ultimately found artistic inspiration, using herself as the subject for a series of confronting and brave portraits with which she rejected the fait accompli of age. At the time she said, “I didn’t like the fall ... but the self-portraits I liked doing. I had something to show.” The unflinching pictures are all the more remarkable because the artist typically eschews using herself as a model. This is Rego, but at a remove, as though wearing a costume. The broken woman. With her swollen face she almost resembles one of ...Subscribe to read this article in full
