The Night of the Sunflower and the Dove
Well my first blog was meant to be out about a month ago, but I have been super busy and haven't given myself enough time to actually write this. I work part time at a cafe which is meh, it pays the bills. I also volunteer at an art gallery which I love to do and look forward to doing it every week and also trying to be a perfect girlfriend, (which of course, I am totally great at). After my masters I should have just STOPPED!! I think if I went to the doctors he would give the diagnosis of knackered. But I have had a few days off to reboot and create a schedule so I can write this blog.
So let's get started………….
Frida Kahlo is one of my favourite artist, her work is just so interesting and her paintings are so iconic. I can't imagine a time not knowing her work and there was a time when she was forgotten. Now she is an iconic figure in the art world and is deemed a national treasure in Mexico.
This is me on my birthday back in 2010 at MOMA in New York.
Frida Kahlo is stranger than fiction, this blog isn't a history lesson but I can give you a little blurb of what she went through and she went through a lot of shit. Heartache, over her adulterous husband, a tram accident that made her have crazy bad health problems, such as reproduction problems, spine and legs injuries where everyone thought she wouldn't be able to walk again.
Frida is the strongest cookie I have ever read about and overcame all of these things. She learnt to walk, learn to paint, which turns out she was bloody good at it and when it came to her hubby, she also wasn't a saint and had many affairs with men and women, one being Trotsky. I could go on pages and pages about Frida's life cause it was so amazing yet so tragic. But if you want to know more you can read her diary.
My Favourite Paintings
I could give you a whole list of Frida's paintings which I love but I have chosen three that I love the most. When you label her work it is labelled as surrealist because Andre Breton, the head of the surrealist group deemed her work as surreal. Frida did not agree with this label but you can not deny her work has surreal elements. For Frida her work is real, it's her life and if you know anything about surrealism you know they can be very pretentious with Freudian penis this, blame mummy that all surrounding their work. But Frida was just telling her story which was tragic but powerful. I have chosen three works which by far are my fav.
The scene is based upon a daily newspaper article in which a man was caught killing his girlfriend by stabbing her again and again. When they asked why he did it he said,but I just give her a couple of nips. This painting shows Frida’s mexican black humor where there connection with death is far more relaxed than our way of dealing with it.
I have a crazy obsession with true crime, I read books, watch documentaries about every crime imaginable, (probs why I check under the bed that there isn't a serial killer in Shiney Row). I have also bought some drawings from a killer, for a friend because we both have this crazy obsession. Having murderabilia is a different subject matter that I might return to later as I am a person who is not against it. ANYWAY I love crime stories, and I believe that this is why Frida painted this cause she loved the macabre in the world and it's something I can connect with her.
What the Water Gave me - 1938
I love this painting for the fact whenever I go in the bath I see my feet reflecting and I do the same thing as the painting. It just shows this is what Frida is seeing, she sees the world in another way. When in the bath you chill and relax, it's good thinking time and I just love the thought she was chilling in the bath and this is what she was thinking, her paintings are just her thoughts exploding over a canvas.
Self Portrait - Cropped Hair -1940
This painting is about Diego betraying Frida, she painted this after her divorce from Diego. She is showing her heartache by stripping her Mexican femininity away. This painting is very personal to me, the painting is more about her betrayal and heartache of the man she loved but to me I see cutting of the hair as a rebirth. Every time I am having the shittest time i cut all my hair off (not shaved, not so brave). I see the pain in this painting and know the story behind it however to me it's very personal about letting things go and moving on.
There is so many more pictures of her work, I could go on and on. Her work is very relatable I can see people who do not understand art would understand Frida by just looking at her work. How can you not look at this painting, The Broken Column, 1944 and not see she is tortured and in pain and you want to know a lot more about her and her work
MY DREAM EXHIBITION
“The night of the sunflower and the dove”
If I could create a dream exhibition on the work of Frida, I would want to take a very small part of her life with a connection she had with fellow artist Jacqueline Lamba. Lamba met Frida in 1938 when she went to Mexico with her husband Andre Breton for a series of conferences. Frida hated Breton and hated surrealism calling the group “big shit.” But she connected with Lamba and they formed a strong relationship. Lamba is mentioned very fondly in her diary and many people have speculated they were more than just friends and had become lovers. After their first encounter Lamba visited once again in 1946 where she stayed with Frida for ten month.
Lamba was an artist herself but she has been a little forgotten in history as she destroyed many of her paintings. Many of her surrealist work was destroyed and this is something I would discuss in this exhibition of why? Both Lamba and Kahlo had a volatile relationship with surrealism, Lamba being more personal as she had a rocky marriage to Breton. I would love to show their paintings side by side and photography that explore their relationship and why they were so close as they seemed so different.
Well that is my little blog about Frida, I hope if anyone reads this they enjoy it. Who knows one day I might be able to curate my dream Frida Kahlo exhibtion, why not dream big!
MAW
