Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)

Kahlos confronting self portraits represent the extent of her suffering but they are more complex
than a simple visual biography. Kahlos images are rich with symbols - monkeys like the attribute
of a saint are a personal symbol indicating promiscuity symbols of Mexico abound her hair
plaited and decorated with ribbons and traditional costume, butterflies a symbol of Aztec warriors
the lush foliage and animals record her connection to land and pantheist beliefs. The graphic
representations of her miscarriages and numerous operations reflect the influence of Mexican
retablo (graphic images inviting the intercession of the Virgin Mary) There are also symbols from
European art in her iconic Broken Column Portrait her injured spine is represented by a
crumbling Greek column.
Background
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Born in Mexico 1907

Contracted polio at the age of seven

Artist
Material Practice
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Painter
Uses a slim sable brush
Kahlos images are rich with symbols
Her images incorporate symbols that reveal her intimate connection to traditional
Mexican culture, the influence of Catholicism and the formal portrait photographs taken
by her father Guillermo Kahlo.

Conceptual Practice
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Adult artist
Extensive output of autobiographical self-portraits
Works are an exploration of identity and self-expression
Surrealist quality to her work
Works are strongly linked with her life experiences as well as relating to world events,
politics and the wider art world
Paints on a personal level and uses it as a therapy for her life
Erotic imagery
Clothing plays a significant role in her self-presentation
Reveals the biological truth of her feelings
Sexual quality to her work

Artwork
Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird
Structural
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Oil on canvas, 62.5 x 48 cm

Unsmiling and sternly disturbing self-portrait
Unflinchingly staring directly at the audience from under the lintel of her graphic identikit
like eyebrows
Monkey peering over left shoulder and black cat glaring over the right

Thorn necklace draped over chest in lower third of image

Fringed with tropical plants

Cultural
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Painted in 1940
Surrealist quality to her work
Expressive of her multicultural background
Mexican and Hungarian/German origins
Both Native symbols and Catholic symbols converge in this painting
Draws from her Mexican heritage, referring to Aztec traditions of divinatory rituals
involving self-mortification with thorns
Draws symbolism from her Catholic upbringing
Never represented as a single self but always a multicultural one

Subjective
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Necklace of thorns alludes to Christs passion

Dead hummingbirds around her neck and butterflies in her hair are Aztec symbols that
signify the souls of dead warriors
The monkey functions as a religious attribute and further accentuates the iconic quality of
the image
The cat appears to be a more generalised symbol of death, imparting an ominous sense
of doom
Physical proximity of both cat and monkey is disturbing
This image is not a self-analysis but a self-invention Sarah Lowe

Postmodern
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Reproductions of artworks found on mouse pads, furniture and clocks

Image placed on a 34 cent post stamp for the US postal service in 2001

The Two Fridas

Structural
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Life-sized double self-portrait, 173.5 x 173 cm

Oil on canvas
Executed simply and realistically
European Frida is seen on the left wearing a high-necked, white lacy dress
Alter ego is the Frida of darker skin on the right who wears the traditional dress of the
Tehuana
Two Fridas joined by an artery attached at each heart
Heart of the European Frida is severed while the heart of the alter ego is whole
An artery of the left Frida has been severed and blood drips through the surgical clamp
and onto her white dress

Cultural
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Completed in 1939 just after her divorce with Rivera

Surrealist quality to her work
Expressive of her multicultural background

Subjective

They thought I was a Surrealist but I wasnt. I never painted dreams. I painted my own
reality Frida Kahlo

World
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The details of Kahlos traumatic life often colour the interpretation of her artworks.
She contracted polio when she was six leaving her right foot permanently deformed.
Kahlo suffered horrific injuries in a car accident when she was eighteen sustaining
extensive injuries to her spine, collarbone, ribs, leg, foot and pelvis.
A handrail also smashed into her back and came out through her vagina and as a
consequence was deemed unable to bare children
Due to these injuries Kahlo underwent over 35 surgeries
Married Diego Rivera in 1929 at age 22
Rivera had an affair with Fridas sister, Christina, putting their marriage to an end in 1939
Couldnt draw during throughout the duration of the affair
Remarried in 1940
In 1941 her father died causing her to suffer depression and deterioration to her health
Forced to wear eight orthopaedic corsets to support her damaged spinal column from
1944 onwards
In 1951 she was confined to a wheelchair
Leg amputated in 1953 due to gangrene
Died in 1954 from pulmonary embolism
Passionate about support and for radical social and political change, the Communist
Party as its agent
Mexican Revolution of 1910 was a cultural success
3 pregnancies 2 miscarriages, 1 therapeutic abortion

Audience
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Works displayed in Museo Frida Kahlo

First works sold in 1938
Showed 25 works at the Julian Levy Gallery in New York
International Exhibition of Surrealism
Museum of Modern Art in New York

Gordon Bennetts work itself is located within histories. He calls himself a history
painter, but works across a range of visual media drawing his sources from
history books, archives, and family photograph albums.
Gordon Bennetts work is political it is about both Aboriginal and EuropeanAustralian history. It helps him and his people rectify that disparity between the
two cultures. Bennett claims that growing up not really knowing he was
Aboriginal in Eurocentric society placed him in a distinctive position. He was
able to see the issues from both sides of the fence and expressed this through
his art. His art is about an eccentric sense of alienation, from himself and the
viewing of himself as an outsider. Many of his views of his Aboriginality were
formulated from the Australian-European perspective. Bennett grew up ashamed
of his Aboriginality and articulated this into his artworks. The bottom line of my
work is coming to terms with my Aboriginality. By deconstructing the way Ive
come to view Aboriginal people through a white perspective. I feel I act as a

measure for how racism has been built up and how Australian identity is
constructed.
His work Outsider which was completed in 1988, expressed his own feelings of
isolation and confusion about his Aboriginality. The work puts across many issues
to Aboriginal deaths and to his feelings of seclusion. Frustration is also expressed
with the suggestion that it cab lead people to suicide and self-mutilation, as in
the case of Van Gogh and the figure in the picture. The Aboriginal figure is
standing in Van Goghs Bedroom Arles (1888) The man is so frustrated that his
head explodes, with blood whirling into the sky. The heads with eyes closed
relate to Europe, blind to the consequences of its actions and unwilling to
acknowledge the blood on its hands. It symbolizes everything was in chaos.
Outsider is a deconstruction of Van Goghs Vincents Bedroom in Arles, 1888 and
Starry Night, 1889
The Aboriginal figure complete with ceremonial paint is frustrated and confused,
that his head explodes, with blood whirling into Van Goghs turbulent sky. The
classical heads with eyes closed, may relate to Europe, or the famous Greek
marbled heads, blind to the consequences of its actions and unwilling to
acknowledge the blood on its hands.
I am Japanese, so why am I dealing with Western work? Because it feels as close
to me as traditional Japanese art. If I had used a canvas to explore my themes, it
would have shown partiality to a Western language, but photographs, I think, are
neither Japanese nor Western. They represent my feeling that I exist in between
the two worlds".

http://mstrudy.edublogs.org/?s=frida+kahlo
http://www.identities.org.mk/files/Radulova_Frida%20Kahlo_A%20Portrait%20of
%20a%20BodyENG.pdf
http://www.oneonta.edu/faculty/farberas/arth/arth200/women/kahlo.html