Michelle Andreano, Frida Kahlo

What draws me to Frida Kahlo as an artist is her use of her personal life in her artwork. She painted self-portraits that showed what she was going through and expressed her inner dialogue. Since my main goal this semester is to create art that conveys emotion, history, and generally just a part of myself, I thought of her because she is the artist I most see this in. I attended the Philadelphia Art Museum's Frida Kahlo exhibition in 2008. It featured not only her paintings, but also sketches and photographs of her and her family.

Physical and emotional pain is shown in her work. In The Two Fridas, she shows herself separated from her husband Diego and alternately loved by him. The complex relationship between them can be seen progressing from her early works into her last ones. (Pbs.org)

The fact that most of her pieces were small works shows how effective she was at creating a complex scene that was more than a 'pretty picture'(Pbs.org). Her work was very graphic at times, particularly the ones depicting her miscarriages and back injury. Henry Ford Hospital shows her lying on a hospital bed, with six images around, including her fractured pelvis, a male fetus, and a model of a woman's reproductive organs (Fridakahlofans.com). A Few Small Nips, created after she found out her husband was having an affair with her sister, depicts her sorrow and pain at the discovery but using another woman's story of being murdered for her unfaithfulness by her jealous lover (Fridakahlofans.com). Both she and her husband had numerous infidelities, Frida's sometimes with women as well as men.

Her sexuality also shows up in some of her painting, particularly in Two Nudes in a Forest, which shows two naked women lying next to each other, one with the others head lying on her lap. These same two nudes appear in What the Water Gave Me, one of her few paintings without a unified central theme, but rather with numerous symbols, some taken from previous works. (Fridakahlofans.com)

During her lifetime, her husband Diego Rivera was vastly more successful and well known as an artist. However, his medium of large mural paintings with political themes in most all of them is now rivaled by Frida's notoriety in the art world today. She became more well known in the 1990's and this recognition was fueled by the motion picture Frida which was released in 2002 (Pbs.org). The allure of her work to me is the knowledge that her pieces are very personal. They aren't there just to look beautiful, they make you think about the history behind them. Knowing the story of her life makes the pieces that much more significant.

Her confidence in herself ran from her heritage, sexuality, politics and all the way to her appearance. She emphasized what many would view as imperfections in a women – her unibrow, her facial hair, and strong emotions. In her art, she showed a confidence in who she was, despite the fact that her life was so hard. To me, that is something I want to cultivate in myself – the ability to be okay with yourself despite your circumstances.

Bibliography

The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo; PBS documentary and accompanying website

Frida Kahlo Fans; complete biography, drawings, and gallery of work page

Frida, 2002 film directed by Julie Taymor (not cited in the paper at any particular point, but informed some of my comments on her work)