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Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.
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I have been wanting to feature Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) for some time now. Her work is a unique and deeply personal voice in the world of art, one that touches on her identity as a Mexican, as a woman and as a political being. Her body of work might well be the the most overtly biographical collection done by an artist. Her famed self portraits make up about a third of her output.
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I have no doubt that most of you have seen her work and are somewhat aware of her story. She has become an icon in modern art, the story of her all too brief life– the debilitating pain she suffered from childhood polio and a later accident, the turbulent and loving marriage to the painter Diego Rivera, her political beliefs, her affairs and much of her personal life– captured in books and film.
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So, I am not going to spend a lot of time on that. Instead, let’s just take a look at a few of her paintings. As I said, they are unique and deeply personal but there is something in them that appeals to aspects in many of us. There is also a short film with more of her paintings set to a song about her.
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We here in the States are often woefully ignorant of many of the artists from our neighbors in the other Americas, such as those in Canada and Mexico. Maybe I shouldn’t say “we” because I really can only speak for myself. My knowledge of Mexican artists was pretty much restricted to what I knew of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, both of which I admire very much.
This point was driven home recently by stumbling across the work of Alfredo Ramos Martinez, who lived from 1877 until 1946. He was a painter/muralist who lived and worked in his native Mexico, Paris and California at different points in his life. He is considered to be the Father of Mexican Modernism and much of his work focuses on the portrayal of traditional Mexican people and scenes. He has been described as a painter who was able to capture the melancholy and sorrow of the people and places he painted.
Redtree Times 