"I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo lived a life chock-full of strife and suffering. At a wee age of 6, Kahlo contracted polio that lead to muscular atrophy of her right leg, which she covered using bold and brightly patterned skirts later in life. At eighteen, she incurred a near-fatal tram accident which damaged her spine and pelvis permanently. In 1929, Kahlo married the acclaimed muralist and serial philanderer Diego Rivera who inspired her to paint and to actively participate in communist rallies in post-revolutionary Mexico. Miscarriages, tumultuous romance, and a broken spine: Kahlo was left to operate with grief all her life.
Frida experienced major depressive episodes and drowned her sorrows by seeking refuge in excessive smoking and drinking. She was always a victim, with despair etched in every scene in her timeline. But Kahlo was a defiant creature who grew up as a proto-feminist in a machismo culture. Instead of giving up, she displayed her anguish on a canvas for the whole world to see. Art became her catharsis. She immersed herself in painting her own reality; self-portraits being one of her biggest drive and made up most of her career’s works. Time and time again she transformed her turbulence into extraordinary artworks. Frida, to this day, is a display of strength and defiance.
Frida experienced major depressive episodes and drowned her sorrows by seeking refuge in excessive smoking and drinking. She was always a victim, with despair etched in every scene in her timeline. But Kahlo was a defiant creature who grew up as a proto-feminist in a machismo culture. Instead of giving up, she displayed her anguish on a canvas for the whole world to see. Art became her catharsis. She immersed herself in painting her own reality; self-portraits being one of her biggest drive and made up most of her career’s works. Time and time again she transformed her turbulence into extraordinary artworks. Frida, to this day, is a display of strength and defiance.
