Above: Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace - 1940.
Above: My Birth
Frida is another of my favourite artists; I do like her hairiness! I can sense her pain in some of her self portraits and I want to make her feel better, if she were alive that is. A great Mexican Surrealist painter with a rather tragic life. At 18 she was hit by a trolley car, a metal hand rail pierced her abdomen, exiting through her vagina. Her collarbone, ribs, pelvis and leg were all broken and her foot was dislocated and crushed. Surprising, she left hospital after a month. It was during this time Kahlo produced many self portraits. She said, "I paint myself because I am so often alone, because I am the subject I know best."
To add to Kahlo’s pain she was married to the famous Mexican Muralist Diego Rivera, a notorious womanizer. Tut tut. Bad man. Apparently, the legend goes that for American women travelling to Mexico, having sex with Rivera was considered as essential as visiting Tenochtitlan.........Poor Frida.
Rivera was a leading proponent of a post-revolutionary movement known as Mexicanidad, which rejected Western European influences and the "easel art" of the aristocracy in favour of all things considered "authentically" Mexican. Kahlo followed this and rejected conventional standards of beauty. Kahlo didn’t pluck her eyebrows or moustache. She even pencilled them in darker!
