Frida Kallo was born in Coyoacan Mexico on July 6, 1907. This is a village located just outside of Mexico City. 18 years later, she began painting when she was nearly paralysed in a bus crash that caused her to be unable walk for three weeks. In 1954, she died due to her fragile health. She was just 5’3″, but nearly half a century later she stands tall in art and beyond.
Kahlo’s paintings were known for their many self-portraits as well as portraits. Her folk-art style was naive and aimed at exploring questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender equality, class and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often included strong autobiographical elements. Even though her love life lends itself to dramatization, her most powerful relationship on Frida Kallo’s stage was with her body.
Kahlo is best known for her painting Roots (1943), in which she expresses the idea that death can be a way to make life better. Kahlo sits on a jagged surface of dirt and rocks in her self-portrait. The small white pillow she uses to rest her head on is a good choice. Her thick dark hair falls over her shoulders. Kahlo’s blood flows through a gap in her body. She feeds the earth with the heartfelt expression of a mother breastfeeding her child. Kahlo provided her body as a guide to understanding, confronting and healing from pain.
Both physical and psychological pain were constants in her life. Due to childhood polio, she was left permanently disabled. The bus accident in her teens left her body permanently scarred. The collision fractured her spine, ribs, and broke her pelvis. Many of her artworks show that she lived most of her life with a body cast and support braces. She underwent more than 30 surgeries and experienced many complications throughout her life, including inability to have children. Kahlo was no stranger in pain and death.
Kahlo places herself in the middle an uneven and almost barren landscape again in The Broken Column, her 1944 self portrait. She’s nuded from the waist down and seems to be wearing a brace to support her body. The great chasm runs vertically up her body. It contains a fractured column that acts like her spine. Kahlo, who was able to correct her spinal problem after surgery, painted a metaphorical representation of pain. Kahlo is naked and covered in thinned nails. Fat tears stream from her wide eyes. Her unwavering gaze reveals both vulnerability as well as strength.
Over 55 of her more than 200 paintings, drawings, and sketches are self-portraits. Her work is often a blend of the magical, psychological and real world in magical surrealism. Many of her paintings seem dreamlike, fusing fantasy with autobiography. Mexican citizen and supporter of 1910-20 Mexican Revolution, she incorporates elements of Mexicanidad. This movement promotes the respect for indigenous cultures. Her artwork often features depictions of hearts, blood, skulls or skeletons. These images are based on the Aztec indigenous myths of Quetzalcoatl (Xolotl), Coatlicue (Aztec deities) and Quetzalcoatl (Quetzalcoatl). Her paintings explored postcolonial issues such as gender and class in Mexican society.
Mexikanische malerin, Kahlo’s legacy seems to grow stronger every year. Interestingly, Las Margaritas restaurant, on Cheshire Bridge Road, has Kahlo-inspired murals plastered its walls. Frida KAHLO: Appearances May Be Deceiving was a major Brooklyn Museum show that featured her work alongside her clothing and belongings.
Kahlo’s intimate and guttural approach to self-portraiture represents one of the precursors of radical self-portraiture by contemporary artists of colour. The politically charged portrayals of self reflect the struggles artists have with the current political climate. Kahlo said it was the formation of Mexico as an independent nation. It is the shaping of America in the 21st century for contemporary American artists.
Frida Kallo’s life is that of a queer and disabled revolutionary. Despite suffering great hardships, she was able to make a profound difference in the world by remaining true to herself, despite all odds. She reminds us to be strong in our vulnerability, and to have faith in the spirit that exists beyond our physical bodies.
