PAULA REGO at THE TATE BRITAIN

7 October 2021 

*Paula Rego at Tate Britain
I have a ticket to see paintings by a Portuguese artist, Paula Rego, at Tate Britain on Friday.

*About

Rego is an artist who is fascinated with storytelling. She is especially interested in stories of women battling with their fears and desires.

She explores adults’ cruelty and children’s wildness and in her paintings, her stories tell of dangerous adventures.

She tries to overturn a world that she believes is shaped by men, for men. In fact, it seems to me that some of her works were for women to see, not men!

Rego is a clever and deep woman and this expo will be difficult for me to comprehend ... which is why I'm going!!

*Jungian

Her work owes much to Jungian therapy. Rego did her own analysis, on her own, as I understand it, a kind of Morning Pages experience. As part of this, she investigated jungian 'archetypal characters*' - stories that mirror and influence human behaviour.

Rego explains: ‘it was very important to go to the origin, the imaginative origin that provides the images of what we have inside us, without us knowing what it is’.

*Surrealist

She also used surrealist techniques that are supposed to wake up our unconscious mind when we view her art. Her paintings can be unnerving ngganggu and seem illogical, putting together strange, magical and distant realities to create beautiful and surprising pictures.

*Your biography

Are archetypes useful when trying to understand or write a biography?.. your own biography? What types are you? What about the major events in your life? Can you recall any special situations you have lived through?

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*https://btleditorial.com/2016/12/05/common-archetypal-character/

Archetypal event
birth, death, leaving home, initiation, marriage (the union of opposites)....

Archetypal characters
the mother, father, child, god, wise old man/woman, trickster, comedian, fool, shaman, leader, scholar ...

Archetypal motifs
the apocalypse, the deluge, the creation...

Characterisation
thoughts, actions, physical description, reactions, and dialogue