FRIDA KAHLO

I had this experience of transcendence from everyday egocentricity today. Couldn't help but share it with you. I was just randomly googling out stuff , something that we all are addicted to now. From googling out my own name to the history of israel ....:) ..i have done it all. But i was never so interested in autobiographies. One of my very inspiring teachers had once told me how very intersting they could get and i had just ignored that.After all, there is only so much one can read. But today i thought why not try it , just for NOT-fun! heheh.... and guess who i googled out... FRIDA KAHLO.I had read about her work in my aesthetics class and her character really interested me.!

To say the least.. i had an experience which could best be described as an escape into something which is even more tragic than reality. This Mexican artist is one of the most inspiring figures i have gotten to know about recently. I am looking for words that could explain her reality, but no amount of emotion could do justice to it. Its the stuff movies are made of . So i shall talk about it, or at least the facts in a seemingly passive way. The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 when Kahlo was three. In her writings she talks about her difficulties as a child in a neighborhood where all kinds of atrocities occurred. Her parents were neglectful, which explains a lot of decisions she took later on in life. Kahlo contracted polio at age six, which left her right leg thinner than the left, which Kahlo disguised by wearing long, colorful skirts. It has been conjectured that she also suffered from spina bifida, a congenital disease that could have affected both spinal and leg development.On September 17, 1925, Kahlo was riding in a bus when the vehicle collided with a trolley car. She suffered serious injuries in the accident, including a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, eleven fractures in her right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot, and a dislocated shoulder. An iron handrail pierced her abdomen and her uterus, which seriously damaged her reproductive ability.
Although she recovered from her injuries and eventually regained her ability to walk, she was plagued by relapses of extreme pain for the remainder of her life. The pain was intense and often left her confined to a hospital or bedridden for months at a time. She underwent as many as thirty-five operations as a result of the accident, mainly on her back, her right leg and her right foot.

Now what interested me the most was her will to live ... After her accident Kahlo started painting . As she felt the need to do something with the intense boredom .She also wanted to be of some use to her family in some way. I had had a look at a few of her paintings' copies last year. The intense pain portrayed in them had left me wanting to know more.! I could tell she had been hurt. And was incredibly lonely. But her almost innocent denial of her reality was even more strange. Her pain would spontaneously pour out in such measure in her work that it was quite disarming. She would lie in bed all day and attempt to paint from the only body part of her that would move.

As often happens in us humans, she ended up marrying a man who was just as neglectful as her parents. Her attraction to him is something i have pondered over. There are records of her being close to her father . And since her husband Rivera was a lot like him, in age and character , it started making sense to me. He was highly intellectual and women were attracted to him because he found them more interesting than men. Her marriage with him was nothing but turbulent, complete with violence and extra marital affairs. Another aspect to Frida was her open bisexuality, which she so defiantly projected. Both of them had a lot of affairs and th marriage ended in divorce and remarriage. Her connection to him is almost overwhelming. This is an example of two people who are always in need of total attention being with each. They would only find solace with each other , even though it was outlined by bitterness and intense pain and humiliation! He once said he liked her moustache and she his bosom.!

Frida says..."They thought i was a Surrealist, but i wasn't. I never painted dreams, just my own reality." In a way, i believe her accident determined who she became. Her desire to paint only ,at first , was an outlet for her emotions. She was deeply lonely.Her paintings depict her in pain, but never broken. Her portrayal of herself in some space and time , even if its permanent, is in my opinion her attempt to see herself as a whole. Her paintings were often Gifts to friends to remind them of herself.

It is incredible how much pain this woman suffered at the hands of life. And to think that she dealt with it , its overwhelming to me. I read a lot of stuff bout the holocaust and the partition and the muslims and the africans. And it was only through art today that i truly understood the meaning of pain. I cannot fairly say i UNDERSTAND, cause i cannot. I haven't experienced it.. i can only imagine it.. To say that she LIVED would be an understatement. I am an emotional person hence i cried. Frida did what i couldn't have. Although i am left wondering, does art really provide such a convenient outlet.? IF it does i am very angry with you god ,for not giving me any GIFT. Her art was her self -portrait. A fantasy land where she could paint herself as she wished. Made herself safer , i guess! I am not in a great position to comment on her as an artist. I am not yet an aesthetician, but a human? I THINK SHE IS FASCINATING.! ( for those of u who r willing do check out her images on google..)