Let them eat cake …
Who would dare snaffle a pastry from Paula Rego’s Cake Woman? This familiar character on Portugal’s beaches in the 1940s has been transformed into a menacing Sibyl. With her ambivalent smile and androgynous, mighty form, she is reminiscent of Michelangelo’s oracles in the Sistine Chapel.
Shifting sands …
The setting is Estoril, where the artist went to school during the second world war, when Portugal was neutral territory. The town was coming into its own as a high-class tourist destination and as a centre for both Nazi and allied spies.
Sweet death …
Above a sunbathing Aryan poster-girl, a death-headed figure worthy of James Ensor stalks the sands, while a man gets cosy with a child-sized figure with receding hair. The composition is balanced, but everything else is out of whack.
Once upon a time …
This 2004 work is typical Rego, conjuring an open-ended folk tale from shadowy, everyday power struggles. Generally, though, she has preferred more brutal fare: twisted tales where women might eat their children.
Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance, MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, Saturday 15 June to 22 September
