Frida Kahlo

This week in class I researched and learned a lot about the artist Frida Kahlo. When we chose the artist we wanted to research I knew very little about Kahlo and had only seen a few of her self portraits. Initially I found her interesting because I knew she had done some very trippy paintings and had an extremely unique look but after doing some research I found her as a person to be even more interesting.

Frida Kahlo had an extremely tragic life which inspired her many paintings. Although Kahlo had many misfortunes in her life I found her inspiring because in her own way she managed to make the best of each situation. Kahlo had not planned to become an artist and only began to paint after getting into a car accident which left her unable to walk for a long period of time. She suffered many long term effects of the accident, one of them being she was unable to have children. Kahlo adopted many animals and incorporated them into her art; she often thought of them as her children. Kahlo often found herself alone and endured two failed marriages. Due to this she chose to create self portraits because she claimed she knew herself best and found herself to be her own best friend.

After learning more about Frida one of my favorite things about her art is her use of symbolism. When I originally looked at Kahlo’s art I saw it as being ‘trippy’ but when I learned more about her I found that each thing was significant to her life. Learning this causes me appreciate and understand each piece even more. I found a website that displays Kahlo’s work and you can see why each symbol is important to her at http://www.pbs.org/weta/fridakahlo/worksofart/monkey.html. Knowing what Kahlo has gone through makes me respect her work even more because I respect her as an artist.

One of my favorite paintings by Kahlo is The Two Fridas because of the use of symbolism. The painting shows two images of Kahlo symmetrically balancing the work. The focal points of the work seems to be the two hearts of the women, symbolizing her ruined relationship and broken heart. The figure on the left has blood stains on her dress showing a contrast between the pure white dress and the blood symbolic of her miscarriages and loss of her husband. The shading in the background shows a dark and stormy sky symbolic of what a depressing time Kahlo has experienced.

Kahlo is an inspiration because when she began her work she broke many rules as to what art should look like. When Kahlo began painting there were few women in art and muralism was the popular form of art at the time. Frida also refused to conform to the normal standards of beauty for the time. Rather than wearing more European and elegant dresses, Kahlo wore bold colors and stayed true to her Mexican heritage. A noticeable trait of Kahlo is her monobrow and facial hair which she often over exaggerates in her paintings.  This is meant to be political statements towards feminism because in western culture they were seen as undesirable. Overall I really enjoyed researching Frida Kahlo because of her strength, leadership,and rugged individualism.

The Two Fridas