Frida

"I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy as long as I can paint."

Frida Kahlo was an incredibly amazing woman. Her life was filled with physical as well as emotional pain. She endured more in her short life than most people will ever have to face. But she endured. She put her emotions into her painting, and as it were, she wore her heart on her canvas. Her work is a rare blend of true emotion, heartbreak, love, and life, as well as death. Most of her paintings were self-portraits. She said, "I paint self-portraits because I am the person I know best. I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other considerations." Her paintings, like Tori Amos's music, are very open and honest. They reflect her emotions, the events in her life, changes in her feelings - whether good or bad. She recorded her life in paint. Her imagery and style were very original, dramatic, and courageous. Her husband, the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, said: "Frida is the only example in the history of art of an artist who tore open her chest and heart to reveal the biological truth of her feelings. The only woman who has expressed in her work an art of the feelings, functions, and creative power of woman."

For those of you that know me, you have already seen my unhealthy obsession with Frida Kahlo. This started when my ever so cultured friend Hugo took me to see her exhibition in Tate Modern. I was mesmerised by her world and the uniqueness of her style and her pain.
It is safe to say, I have a new found passion for surrealism, but I guess, what really got to me about her in particular, is the fact that she paints her life, it is clearly visible in every painting and I love that, I love people that make art something that expresses them rather than what they think they should be expressing in the name of art.