#two fridas

This is the Concept Art/ Visual Moodboard for my "Changling Collection". The concept is centred on the biological life cycle and its various durations based on species.

Pulsating Vegetation (Flora and Fungi)

Bug eyed (magnified mimic sunglasses)

Eponychium Punitive heels (Newborn)

Changling (2 outfits in one, first form chrylilis and second a performed dissection)

Frida Kahlo, Two Fridas, 1939, o/c

ABOUT THE ARTIST: Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter whom is most known for painting in the surrealist style. I would rather recognize her for her brilliant self-portraits. Her paintings depict pain, both physical and emotional, which I think is the key to her brilliance for she was not only painting what knew, but experienced. At the age of six she had polio and in 1922 she was involved in a terrible bus accident which left her leg deformed. As for emotional pain, her husband Diego Rivera, the famous mural painter, was a rolling stone.

ABOUT THE IMAGE: In this image we see two Frida's sitting side by side. One of the Frida's is dressed in traditional Mexican clothing, while the other is seen in European clothing (Kahlo's father was born in Germany). Professor Jeanne Philipp (University of Dayton, Feminism and Art) said that this could be a reference to her being torn between her two cultural heritages and influences. I think that it is simply a reference to both of her backgrounds, as the string that comes from both Frida's hearts are connected as one. Others say that this painting is not about a battle between her cultural backgrounds, but an expression of Frida's hurt since during the time in which this was painted she was divorcing her husband. The Frida on the left then represents the brokenhearted women (her heart has literally been obliterated) and the Frida on the right (with the whole heart) still loves Rivera (and is holding a small picture of him).

TELL ME MORE: smarthistory