I Paint Self Portraits Because…

December 15, 2009 lchris32

…I am the person I know best.”

These honest words were spoken by the very talented Frida Kahlo. If anyone is to have a story to tell, it would be Kahlo, whether in painting, literature or music. She was the daughter of a Hungarian-Jewish man and a Spanish/Mexican/Indian woman. Being the survivor of polio, she was involved in a very serious bus accident that fractured multiple bones and shattered her pelvis. This made her incapable of bearing children, and she constantly suffered from frequent pains in relation to the severe damage done to her body.

In her painting of The Little Deer (1946) Kahlo portrays herself as the animal stuck with multiple arrows, leaving her to die in the middle of the forest. Because she knew herself better than anything else, that it was Kahlo chose to paint. Most of her paintings were very symbolic of her struggles and the pain that she constantly dealt with after the accident. In this painting, the arrows appear to be located at very strategic places on the animal’s body, coinciding with the sources of her pain.

I am very intrigued by Kahlo’s work because she wasn’t afraid to openly express her agony through her artwork. The woman went through hell and was able to become well-known because of it. Not many people would keep on thriving after incidents that Kahlo dealt with. Rather, we would have wasted away without leaving a legacy for others to appreciate. Some of her artwork may be honest and gruesome, but it relays her emotions to the audience, allowing us to sympathize with her.