Frida Kahlo – How isolation affected her art

Madeleine Hornby (MM L6)

Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist from the early 20th century. She was most famous for her self-portraits, portraits and works inspired by Mexican culture. Frida was confined to her bed through illness for most of her childhood. Kahlo was born in Coyoacán, Mexico City, in 1907. Her father, Wilhelm, was a photographer and amateur painter. Her father was a German immigrant, and her mother was half Amerindian and half Spanish. Frida had two older sisters and one younger. In 1922, she enrolled at the National Preparatory School, where she was one of the only 35 female students. Frida soon became well known for her outspokenness and bravery. At the National Preparatory School, she met her husband, Diego Riviera, the famous muralist. He was working on a mural called The Creation on the school campus. In 1928, she met Riviera again, and the next year they were married. For most of their marriage, they were separated and never had children, and this destroyed Frida.

Much of her artwork depicts the pain and loneliness she experienced throughout her life. When she was only six, she contracted polio and was bedridden for nine months. Then in 1925, when she was only 18, she was involved in a terrible accident. She and her friend, Alejandro Gómez Arias, were travelling together on a bus when a vehicle collided with the bus. A street handrail went through her hip; she suffered several severe injuries to her pelvis and spine. As a result, she was bedridden again. After spending weeks in the hospital, she returned home to her father to recover. To pass the time, she took up painting. She initially borrowed paints and brushes from her father, and he made her an easel which could be used from her bed, and fixed a mirror above her bed so that she could paint portraits of herself as she lay in her bed flat with her body wrapped in plaster. In the last couple of years of her life, she was bedridden again. In 1950, after being diagnosed with gangrene in her right foot, and she spent nine months in hospital. Even during this time, she continued to paint. Then in 1953, her right leg was amputated to stop the spread of the disease. Of the 143 paintings Kahlo created in her short career, 55 of them were self-portraits. Frida painted herself so often because, for such a long time, she was alone, and therefore painting herself became the only subject she was really confident with.

Many of Kahlo’s paintings reference the pain and isolation that she experienced. Over the next 20 years of her career, she depicted the frailty of the human body and decay with haunting poignancy. Kahlo’s Broken Column was painted shortly after she underwent spinal surgery, following her tragic accident when she was 18. She depicts herself bound and constrained by a cage-like brace around her body. A chunk of missing skin violates the integrity of her body, exposing her. Metal nails pierce her face and all over her body — tears stream down her face. Placed in a barren landscape, she is exposed in more ways than one. The emotional intensity that we experience when looking at this is what distinguishes her work. She dealt with her reality in her paintings, depicting the pain and isolation she shared her whole life. She is one of the most striking and extreme examples of an artist responding to isolation.

Picture: https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/broken-column-frida-kahlo/