Women Artists

"“fight between who and what I am.”"

""As I began to re-identify myself with the African environment, so my painting became broader and my color stronger, symbolic of the felt experience,”"

"“Let’s work on newspaper, with mud.”"

"English Quotations"

"Her studio, in Kentish Town, north London, was a prop room, a wardrobe, a rehearsal stage, a theatre—her playroom. ... Rego also drew on family and friends to enact her scenarios: her daughters, her grand-daughters, and her partner, the writer and publisher Anthony Rudolf. Rudolf has said that he realised early on that if he wanted to have time with Paula, the only way was to sit for her. He appears in many roles, sometimes cross-dressed, at other times naked as Gregor Samsa in the painting Metamorphosis, or the dead Christ in the mysteries of the life of the Virgin, which Rego painted for the president of Portugal in 2002. When no model fitted her vision, she made “dollies”, stuffed, bulbous puppets that she did not disguise, and who like the sinister Pillowman, haunt her most troubling scenes."

"The vigour of her hand and brilliance of her technique meant she could realise singular, wondrous and disturbing scenes rising in her mind’s eye with unflinching honesty; these images are ambivalent, often perverse, mischievous, with undercurrents of danger. She generated hundreds of entirely original scenarios that are often baffling yet go straight through to the nervous system of the viewer, as Francis Bacon (whom she admired), wished to do. She called her style "beautiful grotesque", a phrase that catches the contradictions in her images, but does not convey the strength and strangeness of the bodies she painted, the turbulent force of her compositions and the sympathy she shows in her depiction of emotions and ordeals."

"Each and every one is subtly disturbing without it being clear quite why."

"Paula Rego is a great artist, and an underrated artist... whether she's tackling war, or 'honour' killing, nothing escapes her awareness of the challenges of life… she's shocking sometimes, and exciting – but that's one of the roles of art."

"Paula takes you to uncomfortable places – Jung called it the Shadow. They are taboo areas, where love and cruelty touch each other"

"I see [her influence] in the work of most female painters – particularly in artists who engage with the body – and with women's position in the world, In fact, I would struggle to think of a significant painter, particularly in Britain, where I can't see a connection to Paula."

"She belong[ed] to a category of artists who are fully and consistently producing work, incredibly rare for a female artist [of her generation]."

"Paula lived for her work."

"'These women are not victims' – Paula Rego's extraordinary Abortion series (Thursday 9 June 2022 07.00 BST)"

"The severity of Monsieur Ingres frightened me. I tell you, because he doubted the courage and perseverance of a woman in the field of painting. He wished to impose limits. He would assign to them only the painting of flowers, of fruits, of still lifes, portraits and genre scenes...I quickly understood that I could take no part in that school except to waste my time."

"No one has ever arrived at a power of analysis of tonal values at once so intense and so sweet...Monet may or may not have thought out these works, but with what vigor he has executed them...I cannot say at what point Monet arouses my emotions, but he produced in me such sensations as make me happy, but which I could not have discovered myself. He opens my eyes and makes me see better."

"Impressionism has produced by this very method not only a new, but a very useful way of looking at things. It is as though all at once the window opens and the sun and air enter your house in torrents. Nature appears clear, enchanted, interesting. It is as though suffocating air had been let out of your attic!"

"Obedience without questioning, without understanding is going to limit how you grow"

"Like Diamonds, people are valuable because we decide they are valuable"

"It affects all of us when our education system fails our children"

"It's my belief that you work harder when your name is on the door"

"The things that define Botswana and Batswana are the stories that we have not had the courage to tell"

"Meet the CEO - Ms. Katso Lebekwe interviews Ms Cheshe (June 2022)"

"re-imagining education in Botswana through The Dow Academy Difference (March 2021)"

"I’ve been drawing since childhood but I studied economics instead of art, I was really interested in political news and geopolitics. My favourite topic is political drawing/cartoon. It is a perfect way to combine my 2 passions: my interest for the news and my drawing skills."

"I value the political awakening of society and I hope that these protests are not in vain and bring changes. This is something unprecedented in our country, never before were there massive marches that lasted more than a month and also in the middle of a pandemic. There is a very complex crisis and a government that does not listen, closes in on dialogue and its only option is force. I am very concerned about the violation of Human Rights by the forces of the State… It is very serious, inadmissible in a democracy."

"I try by means of synthesis to tell as many things as possible, to reflect our inconsistencies and those of our society or simply to play with the absurd. It's a job that I really enjoy."

"My main motivation is to communicate an idea and generate a personal dialogue or with the reader around each image. I think we draw to "rethink"."

"I've been publishing professionally since the early 90's, I was lucky enough to get to work in a newspaper and that was a great school, like a second university."

"Cartoon is the fun way to express opinions and communicate, that's why I like it. When I illustrate textbooks I also try to make them have humor."

"I work a lot on environmental issues, ecology, justice, peace, equality ... because it seems important to show through caricature and humor, the imbalance that humans generate our actions.Cartoonists not fix the planet, but we propose starting points for other views."

"In the political-cartoons genre I like Ares and (Angel) Boligan´s work for their graphic style. I also admire the work of Quino…In children´s illustration, I could give a lot of names also but if I had to choose only one I can say I really admire the work of Rebecca Dautremer. I’m fascinated by her work."

"I work in political/editorial cartoon but also in children’s book illustration. They are 2 different genres, but I like changing from time to time what kind of topics I’m working on. According to my mood I will spend more time in one or another genre.I like to denounce with my cartoons, but sometimes it is also good to put some poetry in this complicated world and the children illustrations help me to focus in something more positive."

"I’m an actor’s director, I love to make the environment safe enough for an actor to make a mistake to fall on their face, to let them know that they’re safe, that I will pick them up, that I will help them through, because really for greatness, you have to be willing to fall down, you know? You have to be able to let it go and take the ride and to be present in yourself and to speak your specific truth."

"My favorite thing is to go where I've never been."

"She was really terrific...Diane was one of the first female role models I ever had that didn’t wash the floor six times a day. I liked her as a teacher."

"I work from awkwardness. By that I mean I don't like to arrange things. If I stand in front of something, instead of arranging it, I arrange myself."

"Nothing is ever the same as they said it was. It's what I've never seen before that I recognize."

"For me the subject of the picture is always more important than the picture. And more complicated. I do have a feeling for the print but I don't have a holy feeling for it. I really think what it is, is what it's about. I mean it has to be of something. And what it's of is always more remarkable than what it is."

"I never have taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse."

"They are the proof that something was there and no longer is. Like a stain. And the stillness of them is boggling. You can turn away but when you come back they'll still be there looking at you."

"Everybody has that thing where they need to look one way but they come out looking another way and that's what people observe. You see someone on the street and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw."

"It's always seemed to me that photography tends to deal with facts whereas film tends to deal with fiction. The best example I know is when you go to the movies and you see two people in bed, you're willing to put aside the fact that you perfectly well know that there was a director and a cameraman and assorted lighting people all in that same room and the two people in bed weren't really alone. But when you look at a photograph, you can never put that aside."

"I do feel I have some slight corner on something about the quality of things. I mean it's very subtle and a little embarrassing to me, but I believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them."

"Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot....There's a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats."

""Our whole guise is like giving a sign to the world to think of us in a certain way, but there's a point between what you want people to know about you and what you can't help people knowing about you. And that has to do with what I've always called the gap between intention and effect."Goldman, Judith."

"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know."

"The making of a picture involves two processes: a taking in of the impression and giving out of it by the visible expression. (....) The degree of beauty in a picture depends upon the feeling for beauty in the artist and his power to express it."

"In my opinion Black art is a misnomer. There are black artists and they, like all others, draw from they experiences to produce artistic expressions. If this expression is non representational, it is difficult or not impossible to tell whether the artist is white or non white. There can be no doubt however of the impact traditional African art has had on the world of modern art."

"Color is life, or a world without color appears to us as dead. Colors are the children of light, and light is their mother. Light (...) reveals to us the spirit and living soul of the world, through colors. The colors of the rainbow and the Northern Lights soothe and elevate the soul. The rainbow is accounted as a symbol of peace."

"The use of color in my paintings is of paramount importance to me. Through color I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness in my painting rather than on man's inhumanity to man.(...) My goal was not to offend the beauty in nature, but rather to share with others those aspects of it that have given me so much joy."