'Rita'
85x85cm
fitted with a distressed oak frame 
 
The Frida Collection
 
This collection is inspired by the delicate and complex identity of Frida Kahlo. Her brutally honest self portraits describe all the love, longing and horror of the female experience. Frida’s paintings share the differing ways we can defy the storylines laid out for us by culture, she explores her own struggles of finding her identity through multiple cultures and the margins she felt relegated to.
 
Working through this series, my fascination with Frida has evolved. My interest with Frida began as a cultural and style icon, but her harsh honesty in sharing the female experience is what I can’t move past.

The heart ache and losses of the female experience are often met with silence and braved alone. Infidelity. The excruciatingly painful loss of a child/ miscarriage/ stillbirth/ abortion. Change of body, and beauty. Friendships, how they grow or fall away. Jealousy. Motherhood (or absence of). Family, guilt. Sexual trauma. Watching your parents grow old and pass. Ageing and wisdoms.
 
These paintings are an embodiment of Frida, as well all are. The silent pain as a right of passage. It lives within our eyes and hearts. The truth bonds us, but silence separates us.
 
Flowers have long been a celebration of fertility, fleeting beauty and a connection to the natural world. The flowers celebrate femininity in all stages, the fragility of life. The flowers worn upon our head are cause for celebration and the silent sisterhood to which we all belong.
 
‘I paint the flowers so they will not die’.