Dimensions: support: 1200 x 1520 mm
Copyright: © Paula Rego | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: So, Paula Rego’s "Nanny, Small Bears and Bogeyman"... it's in the Tate collection. The figures are so raw, so intensely expressive. What's your take on this nightmarish nursery rhyme? Curator: Ah, yes! It's the stuff of childhood anxieties, isn’t it? The thick paint, the almost grotesque figures... Rego captures the way children see the world, through a lens of heightened emotion. It's less about reality, more about feeling. What does it evoke for you? Editor: A queasy discomfort, but also a strange familiarity. Like a half-remembered bad dream. Curator: Precisely! It’s that emotional truth that resonates. Rego’s not afraid to delve into the darker corners of our psyches. It's like she's saying, "These are the stories we tell ourselves, the monsters we create." Editor: I see, so it's a kind of unearthing? Curator: Yes, and a powerful one. Editor: Wow, I'll never look at my teddy bear the same way again. Curator: Nor should you!
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http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rego-nanny-small-bears-and-bogeyman-t03839
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Rego stated that ‘to do a picture I always need a story to start with, although as I go along the story may change or the picture may change’. The story referred to here was told to Rego by a friend and is based on Elias Canetti’s autobiography in which his nanny’s boyfriend threatens to cut out his tongue. Rego explained: ‘the one who is most wicked is not the bogeyman but the nanny who has strapped him [the bear] up. She is so possessive and horribly evil that while I was painting the front bear another little bear appeared behind it.’ Gallery label, September 2016
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