Frida Kahlo shows us her love for Nature

{ENGLISH}. Visiting the Frida Kahlo exhibition means looking at her, right into the eyes, from the very first moment .

Immediately it’s clear that you are not admiring paintings of a bygone era with an incredible contemporary attitude, but that you are going to live the milestones of her life, mesmerized by her piercing, deep and magnetic look.
“They thought that I was a Surrealist, but I have never been. I have always painted my own reality, not my dreams ” – I felt as I could hear her voice during all the exhibition.

Silent cries of pain, passion, life courage seem to come out from her canvas.

Enigmatic and ambiguous in those multiple and conceptually complex overlay that makes me think about a sophisticated and attentive collage, mirror of an age that could be ours. Proud, courageous and with a style that makes her today, 60 years after death, a pop icon on different levels, either represented on the cover of Vogue or be considered as a symbol of feminism. Rough and sensual with her fierce look, her big eyebrows and that incredulous expression typical of someone who is struggling with life a lot. Magnetic and penetrating, intellectually dazzling with all the references to her native culture and the world full of symbolism and esoterism that it is still possible to perceive in the cities of Mexico and New Mexico as  Albuquerque or Santa Fe ( if you are looking for it you can take a look at my coast to coast).

Among more than 200 paintings, there are many self-portraits. She claimed herself to be her favorite subject because it was with herself that she spent most of the time.

But the portraits are not simply a mirror of a face changing through years. They are once again talking of objects that communicate the inner thoughts in a multiple representation. Often what occupies her mind appears to us as a third eye in the middle of her forehead and the strong personal identity seems very close to nature. Flora, fauna and lush vegetation are often represented in background and ornament.

The nature irradiates her life, as lifeblood, especially when she moved from Mexico to the United States. As electric wires, roots transmit power and energy. And Nature is her endless support when it appears as a tropical forest, as modern as a wallpaper or a print by Kenzo .
It helps and assists when, in the shape of a group of monkeys, become a drape on her neck.
But it is the nature that assumes a symbolic power when it gives us the idea of the fragility of the difficult Frida’s physical condition and becomes a crown of thorns on a bloody neck .
Flora and fauna of Mexico, cactus, tropical plants, lava rock , monkeys, itzicuintli dogs, deer and parrots are the protagonists of her paintings and inseparable companions of her solitude .

And more than a pop icon, source of inspiration of the album ” Viva la Vida ” by Coldplay or for the model for Mexican singer Belinda’s photo shooting, I like to think about Frida still living into her imaginary green colored world.

– The present exhibition is in Rome at the “Scuderie del Quirinale” until August –