Artwork: Memory

Artist: Frida Kahlo

Created: 1937

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 48.2 x 38 cm

Location: Private Collection

“Frida Kahlo ( 1907-54) produced more than fifty-five self-portraits all delaying with issues of identity. In self-portraiture, the artist enters into a conspiracy with the mirror and their is either a conscious construction of a persona or, to varying degrees, an honest investigation. Memory contains clues to the artist’s state of mind. Here she has shown herself three times, once in a white dress and jacket, with cropped hair, and without arms and hands. She appears twice more represented by contemporary and Mexican clothes, empty except for the missing limb. An arrow pierces the chest where the heart should e. The enlarged heart lies on the shore, bleeding into the sea. The cropped hair and the displaced heart refer to her husband Diego Rivera’s infidelities. The clothing signifies her place in the world as a contemporary artist with a strong link to her Mexican-Indian heritage. (WO)

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