Rego Retold

The Saison Poetry Library at the Southbank Centre held an exhibition of paintings and poems from the book from 17th March - 3rd May 2015

50 poems and paintings to celebrate the 80th birthday of the great Anglo-Portuguese painter Dame Paula Rego.As Deryn Rees-Jones writes in her foreword, one of the most striking elements of Paula Rego's art is her ability to hint at implied narratives, to dramatise the 'pause between feeling and action, between knowing and not knowing'. Into this pause, Owen Lowery inserts his own poetic responses to Rego's works. Drawing on the often disturbing themes of Rego's works - power, violence, the body at its most vulnerable - Lowery creates poems that both interpret the visual and move away from it into new narratives. Rego Retold is a fascinating exploration of the interplay of word and image; it is also a poet's personal tribute to one of the most significant artists of our time.