Beauty and Pain Art

Frida Kahlo de Rivera (July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954) is a Mexican surrealist painter best known for her use of vibrant colors and self-portraits. I found one of her paintings titled a few small nips in a book named The Visual Encyclopedia of Art. The violence depicted in the painting was no surprise since I've seen worse from artists. What surprised me is the fact that the painting was done by a woman. I was instantly captivated and curious to what images were depicted in her other works of art. 

What I found is that half of her works were self-portraits mixed with folk imagery. The other half were a blend of beauty and pain showing the different hardships she faced in life. Kahlo had Polio as a child which left one leg permanently smaller than the other. Then a serious traffic accident in her teens which required numerous surgeries and caused life long health issues. Finally, she had a miscarriage of the baby made with husband famous painter Diego Rivera and found out that she couldn't bare children. 

All these hardships bled into her paintings which showed the trials and tribulations of the female experience without compromise. Below are a few of her paintings that captivate the eyes and the imagination.