I had never really been interested in viewing Frida Kahlo's work, but I have been seeing many images of her in the art of other people I have been running into...so I thought I should look into the woman to see what these other women in my life have already found out about her. The duel reason was to peer into an open window of my own culture...or I should say, my lost culture.
First of all I rented the DVD of Frida. I was astonished by all the visual aspects of this movie...the balance between sweetness and bitterness, life and death, celebration and mourning. I saw a sense of myself. Then as I watched the added features of the DVDs, I had jaw dropping experiences. I enjoyed how they put skin, bones and blood on Frida in this movie...I like that one of Frida's real lovers sang in the movie to her character with her broken voice...
She was born in 1907...a few years after my own grandmother...and near the town that my grandmother was born...her given name...Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo...reminding me again of my own grandmother...and of myself.
There were comforting moments of getting to know this art. A sense of deep understanding within my very bones. And a kinship ... to my own culture. I understand her passion...her pain...her disappointment and her triumph. What is interesting is how much collage work, mixed media and personal moments are in her art. André Breton, described it as "a ribbon around a bomb." I like that visual!
Mourners gathered on July 13, 1954 to watch the cremation of the world's greatest and most shocking painter. Soon to be an international icon, Frida Kahlo knew how to give her fans one last frightening goodbye. As the cries of her admirers filled the room, the sudden blast of heat from the open incinerator doors blew her body bolt upright. Her hair, now on fire from the flames, blazed around her head like a halo. Frida's lips appeared to break into a seductive grin just as the doors closed shut. Her last diary entry read "I hope the leaving is joyful and I hope never to return". Frida was only 47 on the day she died. Her amazing, and many times bloody self-portrait paintings will live forever.
This was a fascinating news clipping I found...more intrigue! More...myth and folklore of Frida. I don't know about her politics...but I know she was her own person...and a great artist. I am glad I opened up to get the experience of her...to see her in my own culture...to take the gift of my culture and embrace it.
It is interesting how symbolic she worked...that I am now on the journey of creating the Tarot cards with symbols...and that I have felt dis-connected to my culture...and now I am more connected...and it seems like symmetry in life to me.
The painting here is "Thinking of Death"...facinating to me...her death playing out in the middle of her forehead, her brain...I like that she provokes me...
Comments