Frida Kahlo and her Art

Frida Kahlo De Rivera, was a mexican artist who had painted many portraits, and self-portraits and she did works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. She employed a naive folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexico society. She was born on July 6th, 1907, in Coyoacan, Mexico City, Mexico, and she died on July 13th, 1954, in Coyoacan, Mexico City, Mexico. Frida Kahlo started making art in the year 1929.The periods of art work that she did were Naive art, Modern art, Surrealism, Magical Realism, Primitivism, symbolism, Naturalism, Social Realism, and Cubism. She made approximately 200 paintings, drawings, and sketches.She painted her own reality, and she was deeply influenced with Mexican culture, which is clear in her use of bright colors, and dramatic symbolism. She often included the symbolic monkey. In Mexican mythology, monkeys are symbols of lust, but she portrayed them as tender and protective symbols. She made lived and made art in Coyoacan, Mexico City, Mexico. She was considered one of Mexico's greatest artists, who had began painting self-portraits after being in a severe bus accident. Frida later became politically active and she married fellow communist Diego Rivera in 1929. She made 55 self portraits out of her 200 paintings. Her art is often characterized by its suggestions of pain. Out of her 200 paintings, 55 are self-portraits, that include symbolic portrayals of physical and physiological wounds. Her art was heavily influenced by Mexican indigenous art. Some quotes from her are: Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly? I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good feeling. I hope the leaving is joyful; and I hope never to return. I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best. I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality. I love you more than my own skin. There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst. They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality. I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you. I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint. I think that little by little I'll be able to solve my problems and survive. The most important thing for everyone in Gringolandia is to have ambition and become somebody,' and frankly, I don't have the least ambition to become anybody. Pain, pleasure, and death are no more than a process for existence. The revolutionary struggle in this process is a doorway open to intelligence.

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