Paula Rego's Critical Worlds at La Virreina, Barcelona

An exhibition of Paula Rego's works, titled 'Léxico Familiar', is on view at La Virreina in Barcelona until October 8. The Portuguese-born artist, now based in London, explores power dynamics, hierarchies, and subverts bourgeois institutions like family, religion, and the state. Her robust, dark-haired women are inspired by Portuguese women and shaped by her childhood under Salazar's dictatorship. Rego's work is deeply autobiographical, dealing with themes such as care for the elderly (inspired by Benito Pérez Galdós's novel 'Misericordia'), female genital mutilation, and abortion. She depicts abortion with psychological empathy, having undergone several herself. Her later works from the late 1980s and 1990s are less expressionist and more ambiguous, including 'Blancanieves' (1995) and 'La prueba' (1990). The exhibition includes only two such pieces. Rego's art is compared to Goya and Grosz for its destructive spirit. The review was originally published by Victoria Combalía in El País and translated from Spanish.