This work was one of my coursework projects last year when our topic was the artist Frida Kahlo. The materials I used were pencils and color pencils. Our task was to imagine and draw the rest of Frida Kahlo’s body from what we had learned from her life story as well as paintings. We received the paper with only Frida Kahlo’s head printed on. 

Here I started sketching elements such as the traditional mexican dresses she wore to point out her love for these traditional dresses and the representation of her own person, but also added a time bomb to where her heart was, showing that she could ‘go off’ any time, triggered by the many life events she experienced. I included empty bird cages not only to show the exotic side of Frida Kahlo and the love for animals she had, especially bizarre ones but also to symbolize how her life has played out. The pain, suffering and in particular suffocation that came over herself after her accident. Just like as if she was in a cage, unable to free herself. 

The dress and the colourful flowers on her head showed the happy image she transmitted to the outside world in contrast to the real mental health state that she actually was in. At the end I added cracks to her skin, just like how porcelain cracks, this shows the fragile and broken part of her. Broken parts that may have been impossible to heal.