Paula Rego

Paula Rego has been one of my favorite artists since I visited an exhibition of hers in 1998. Her paintings always carry an narrative with them, which is what led me to revisit her for this project. I have been thinking of illustration style for this project and I already know that I do not wish to carry with the fairy tale illustration conventions. For starters I have not attempted an etching for years and am not sure if I can remember how to do it, however more importantly I want to show a different side to fairy tales the darker, underbelly side of them.

"Her work often uses imagery from fairy tales with a sinister edge in which there
is a malicious domination, a subverting of natural order or exposes social
realities that are unpolite or polemic like abortion."

Links:
Tate Magazine 8

"Swallows the Poisoned Apple"

In Swallows The Poison Apple, Paula Rego revises the tale of Snow White to expose the fallible value of youth. Dressed in traditional Disney garb, this Snow White isnÂ’t a beautiful princess, but a middle-aged woman. And put so much better then I could:

"Pictured moments after eating the poison apple, she lays sprawled amidst
overturned furniture, suggesting painful and violent demise. Clutching her
skirts, she alludes to her sexual nature, as if clinging to something slipping
away. Her body lies between a blanket adorned with spring blossoms, and a
sinister backdrop of red and black. Rego illustrates the conflict of reality
encroaching on the socially imposed myths of female worth, construing aging as
both a physical and psychological violation"

"Snow White Playing with her Father's Trophies"