From her frames to her eyebrows, it seemed that everything about her had a discordant note. Being in-sync with the world was not a priority for her. Instead, she preferred to create her own world with gusto and irreverence. Frida Kahlo, the Mexican painter, lived life on her own terms (1907-1954).

Eighty nine years ago, on September 17, Frida Kahlo had a bus accident that left her with multiple injuries.

The pain of displaced vertebrae, bandages and plaster corsets gave birth to one of the most powerful artists of her time.

Painting self

Frida was best known and also criticised for her self- portraits. In response, Frida had said: “I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.” Bedridden for months after the accident, she began channelling her energy into painting. Soon, her bed had a canopy with a mirror so that she could be her own model.The more her body pinned her down, the more her mind bounced back.

The more the grey shade of her reality enveloped her, the more the colours of her canvas turned vibrant. In that sense, she deconstructed the colour codes of her life and added exuberance — through colours and themes — to everything linear around her.

Some of her works including ‘Self-portrait The Frame’ (1938), ‘Me and My Parrots’ (1941), ‘Self-portrait with Small Monkey’ (1945), ‘Sun and Life’ (1947) could serve as examples. Often, in art and literature, the personal is subjected to scrutiny. In common perception, it tends to undermine the broader context of the universal and hence is something ‘less than art’. But, don’t all our stories originate from ‘our’ within?

What is personal?

Today, when the ‘personal’ is no longer restricted to binaries of ‘me’ and ‘my life,’ but involves ‘sharing,’ we may want to ask a few questions. Can anything be presumably ‘personal’ just because the engagement is not aggressively social?

Besides, in an age of social media where writing/art has the ‘self’ as its centrifugal force, Frida’s works seem to find a new context. She fictionalises herself in her paintings. Frida’s engagement with herself as her subject has taught us that if the ‘personal’ is expressed with intense ingenuousness, people outside that intimate frame, too, can identify with that. Emotions, after all, are universal across the world. The intensity of ‘pain’ may vary, but it conveys an anguish that cuts across gender, nation or religion.

The sound of spontaneous laughter conveys free will and joy. A lover’s embrace still makes us believe in a supple tenderness that touches our heart. Most of us cringe at the sight of blood and most of us would perhaps comprehend the passion of Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’, even if we had no understanding of art.

It is through these independent but universal elements that Frida challenges the territorial dimension of an individual identity, creating a fresh syntax, building a living narrative that lives on.

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