Del Kathryn Barton's You Are What Is Most Beautiful About Me

Artists artworks are often self portraits because they reflect the emotions and thoughts that the artist possesses while they are creating the piece. Our mind, body and soul are all connected and therefore our thoughts are a reflection of ourselves and our identity. A self portrait is a representation of ourselves and it is for this reason that a self portrait is not restricted to the classic image of our body or facial features. Rather, self portraits are any creations produced by an artist. Del Kathryn Barton’s You Are What Is Most Beautiful About Me, 2008, is a symbolic self portrait where she represents a variety of aspects of her identity. Frida Kahlo is also an artist who uses her work as a way of depicting her identity. The two artist’s although both illustrating themselves, have very different ways of doing so. Whilst Kahlo often portrayed herself quite negatively and focused on her misfortunes, Barton took a different approach in the piece, You Are What Is Most Beautiful About Me, and rather celebrates her fortunes or the things she is most grateful for in life.
As she has developed as an artist, her work has transformed and she shares this spiritual and personal journey through her artwork. Similarly, Frida Kahlo used art as an emotional outlet to deal with the hardships of her life. Kahlo started and finished painting her first self-portrait after being involved with a tragic bus accident in which a bus collided with a streetcar leaving Frida Kahlo seriously injured. Strong, bold emotions, her life experiences and the pain she’s endured throughout these life experiences have deep influences on Kahlo’s work. Both Barton’s and Kahlo’s works have other repeated themes throughout her pieces that are influenced by their culture and