Frida Kahlo's Influence On Identity

Artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), born and raised in Mexico City, expresses her identity and her experience living in post-revolutionary Mexico throughout her work. Her father, Guillermo Kahlo, emigrated from Germany to Mexico, and her mother, Matilde Calderón, was born in Oaxaca. On her mother’s side, Kahlo’s grandmother was of Spanish descent and her grandfather was Amerindian. She establishes her identity in her art by combining elements from her nation’s heritage and the cultural diversity of contemporary Mexico. Kahlo’s work, often defined by her self-portraits and personal tragedies, gives insight to some of Mexico’s political and cultural struggles post-colonization. Kahlo’s work includes her own cultural transitions individually,
Through her use of Aztec, Zapotec, and Mexican folk imagery, Kahlo represents the “nationalist ideology of post-revolutionary Mexico” to honor the traditions of the past (Andersen, 2009, p.119). However, it is important to note that Kahlo’s nationalistic references resist, what Andersen (2009, p.119) describes as, romanticized versions of the autochthonous. Andersen (2009) argues that Kahlo’s work suggests that cultural identities, especially after conquest and colonization, are “unstable” and “problematic” (p.119). In reference to cauterizing the wounds of Mexico’s past, Andersen (2009) states that Kahlo “not only exposes these wounds, but she lets them bleed” (p.119). Kahlo paints ancient Mexican culture in a brighter light in comparison to images of contemporary cultures, such as in Europe and the United States. In a letter sent from Paris, she wrote, "They are so damn ‘intellectual’ and rotten that I can’t stand them anymore…I would rather sit on the floor in the market of Toluca and sell tortillas, than have anything to do with those ‘artistic’ bitches of Paris” (Hedrick, 2003,
Havard describes the nurse as a “stylized symbol of indigenous Mexican culture” (2006, p. 246). This can be representative of the fact that Kahlo has been “nurtured” by her culture (Havard, 2006, p.246). Another of her works, Memory (1937), deals with her common theme of fragmented identity. This self-portrait shows Frida dressed in European-style clothes with a rod through a hole in her chest. Her heart is emphasized and is placed on the ground at her feet bleeding. To her left hangs a child’s school uniform and a Tehuana dress hangs on the right. Andersen sees this as Kahlo expressing her “triply divided” identity as the Frida in the center lacks arms and the two dresses at her side each have one arm (2009,