Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist born in 1907. She was known for her bold and vibrant coloured self-portraits symbolizing her Mexican culture.
Even if you are not an art enthusiast, her pictures are easily recognisable, especially by her infamous unibrow.
As a child she suffered from Polio disease and nearly died in a fatal accident when she was a teenager. It was during her recovery that she started painting and experimenting with self-portraits using a specially-made easel with a mirror connected to it allowing her to paint in bed. Her art took a deep influence from the Renaissance masters and the avant-garde movement.
As well as art, Kahlo had a keen interest in politics and joined the Mexican Communist Party where she met the famous artist Diego Rivera. He was amazed by her paintings and even more so by her, which eventually led to them getting married. Their relationship was pretty turbulent and was marked by multiple affairs from both sides. Though they were both transparent about each other’s infidelities, Diego would get extremely jealous when a woman lover was involved in Kahlo’s life. Their marriage became further strained when Diego went on to have an affair with Kahlo’s younger sister. Her painting ‘Memory, the Heart’ reflects the pain she suffered during this period. They both eventually divorced but remarried again a year later, but it continued to be rocky.
It was during her travels with Diego that she took inspiration from Mexican folk art and developed her unique artistic style. This was quickly noticed by a very famous surrealist artist André Breto, who arranged Kahlo’s first solo exhibition. He considered Kahlo a surrealistic, but she rejected this statement and said she painted her reality.
In 1953, just a year after the exhibition she died at the age of 47. She was crippled by multiple disabilities and long-term medical issues throughout her life but came face-to-face with these and turned them into art. Kahlo ultimately painted the diary of her life. Each painting, whether it be a self-portrait or a still life, captures a moment in her life whilst exploring questions of identity, post colonialism, gender and race in the Mexican society.
Today she is celebrated more than ever due to her indigenous culture and her vision of the female form. She has become a recognised figure in the history of art and regarded as an icon for the feminism and LGBTQ movement. She didn’t conform to beauty standards. Instead she celebrated her facial hair and accentuated her unibrow with an eyebrow pencil. She was challenging the norms of society, which would be seen as progressive in today’s era.
She was an amazing woman artist who has left behind a legacy that should not underestimated. She is an influencer, not only to artists, but to people who suffer similar painful times in their lives, be it a failed marriage, miscarriages, assaults or severe injuries sustained in accidents. Through her work, it gives the viewer hope that they can also endure and recover from these experiences.
Quotes
“Passion is the bridge that takes you from pain to change.”
“Don’t build a wall around your own suffering or it may devour you from the inside.”
“They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.”
“I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.”
