Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) was an outstanding Mexican painter whose extraordinary art reflected indigenous culture of her country in a style combining realism, symbolism and surrealism. Using her unique "folkloric" style of painting, Frida painted the diary of her life. Each painting, rather it be a self-portrait or a still life, captures a moment in her life. Kahlo was noted for her unconventional appearance, declining to remove her facial hair, and for her gaudily styled clothes, drawn largely from traditional Mexican dress. She was an open bisexual and she had a light mustache and unibrow which she loved to exaggerate in her self portraits.

Born to Guillermo Kahlo and Matilde Calderón y Gonzalez, Frida was the result of an unhappy marriage. Her father has married her mother after the death of his first wife. The young Frida suffered from polio at the age of six, which left her right leg looking much thinner than the other. But, with her father's constant encouragement and with her own fiery and brash nature, she overcame her disability. She was much closer to her father than her mother.

In 1922, Kahlo was enrolled in the Preparatoria, one of the top schools in Mexico and during her study there, she witnessed violent armed struggles in the streets of Mexico City as the Mexican Revolution was taking place. At the age of 18, she was seriously injured in a bus accident. She spent over a year in bed recovering from fractures to her spine, collarbone and ribs, a shattered pelvis, and shoulder and foot injuries. She endured more than 30 operations in her lifetime, and during her convalescence she began to paint. She thought of bizarre ways of expressing her mental trauma, frustrations with life and physical pain using colors.

She was highly influenced by Mexican culture, which she reflected in her paintings' by using bright colors, dramatic symbolism, and unapologetic rendering of often harsh and gloomy content. At 24, she married the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, 20 years her senior. Their relationship was stormy but passionate which survived infidelities, divorce, remarriage, Frida's lesbian flings, her poor health and her inability to bear children.

During her lifetime, Frida created some 200 paintings, drawings and sketches incorporating her experiences in life, physical and emotional pain and her turbulent relationship with her husband, Diego. Most of her paintings are self-portraits and in many of them she appears with her beloved pets or objects that she loves. When asked why she painted so many self-portraits, Frida replied: "Because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best."

Later, she became heavy smoker, drank liquor in excess as a result of her turbulent relationship with Diego. The couple divorced, but remarried in 1940. This remarriage was as turbulent as the first. In spite of all the agonies, the physical wounds, her troubled marriage, her painful miscarriages, her numerous operation, emotional wounds, Frida kept on expressing herself by making outstanding paintings and creating her life’s diary.

Kahlo died on July 13, 1954, supposedly of a pulmonary embolism. She had been ill throughout the previous year and had had a leg amputated owing to gangrene. However, a postmortem was never performed and many are convinced she committed suicide. A few days before her death she had written in her diary: "I hope the exit is joyful; and I hope never to return."

Though, her life had been full of anguish and remorse, she has gifted the world with a bequest of astonishing creations of her surreal imaginations that will remain as wonders in the world forever.

Sources-The Life and Art of Frida Kahlo,

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