forty fridas

heroic little moments

A series of forty woodcut etchings depicting women and girls dressed up as painter and icon, Frida Kahlo, this project is an intimate collection of personal portraits that explores themes of identity, the multiple, individuality and variation. Borrowing a head-and-shoulders composition that Frida Kahlo often used for her own self-portraits, each of the Forty Fridas makes direct eye contact with the viewer.

My desire to balance saturated and muted colors led me to invert the woodcut color process over the course of the portfolio. Traditionally, color woodcuts are printed in the order of lightest to darkest. However, in order for saturated details like thin lines or patterns to show up as woodcut lines, I began printing very bright or dark under colors and spending the remaining woodcut layers softening them with opaque light layers that would produce muted third colors at the overlap. As the Fridas’ floral headpieces became more abstract through this process, they began to take on an almost psychological role.

Opposite page lrom left to right:

Anna, Nina, Amelia, Abigail, Chayito, Alana, Akemi, Karima, Catherine, Lydia, Jasmine and Emily as Frida

Woodcut and drypoint, 2012

6 x 8 inch plates