Ok, now I got to answer Mary's inevitable question: "What are you trying to say?"…
Personally, I have never felt my own Artwork, would it be photographs, paintings, sculptures, video, animation, necessarily had to say something specific loud and clear that is decided in advance. I just start working, and I trust that whatever comes out WILL mean something. Rarely have I started with a clear message. I consider myself more or less a Surrealist, and believe the ultimate meaning of a work of Art is a sum of things, and is not necessarily the same for everybody.
I hate wordy and generally meaningless "Artist Statements", and generally regard it as pretentious bull. A work of Art has many levels of meaning, and shouldn't need explanation. BUT FIRST and foremost, it HAS to draw you in on a basic visual gut level. When I enter a gallery, I look around for a piece that calls me. Unfortunately, in those days of curatorial modernism, there sometimes aren't any. I just walk out. I don't want to have to read a bunch of fuzzy explanations to appreciate something that doesn't look like anything to me. Now, that's my view of things.
Some people don't dig any further than appearances and are perfectly happy getting it on the first level. That's why there has to be a basic first level. Other people read it on a deeper level, sometimes because they actually understand exactly what I meant, sometimes because they find a completely different meaning that I never even intended. That's fine. How many times have people asked me at a show: "What does it mean?". My answer usually was: "I have no idea, you tell me!".
Anyhow, enough ranting and raving on the subject. Let me try to answer Mary's question before she asks it again. The paintings below kind of sum things up.
I want to show Frida's triumph over tremendous physical and mental pain (bordering on torture on the part of both her "doctors" and Diego), and her great thirst for life and gusto despite it, with yet the constant looming presence of La Pelona (death). As she said herself, "Pinche Vida"(Bitch of a Life), but also "Viva la Vida!". I am primarily interested in her way of (literally) putting her best face on every day and getting the most of it, hiding her vulnerability behind a carefully constructed persona, yet keeping her daring and fearless originality.
As important as he was to her, and as famous as he was as an Artist, I don't care much about Diego Riveira, and see him as a rather cartoonish figure: "the sexually obsessed toad". He was not good to her, and she suffered greatly from his obsessive philandering. Only after they re married toward the end of her life did they find some kind of peace.
I am mostly interested in the women in her life, her cold hearted mother, her sister Christina, her friend Tina Modotti, Lupe Marin, Chavella Vargas.
A few more images to complete the picture:
Personally, I have never felt my own Artwork, would it be photographs, paintings, sculptures, video, animation, necessarily had to say something specific loud and clear that is decided in advance. I just start working, and I trust that whatever comes out WILL mean something. Rarely have I started with a clear message. I consider myself more or less a Surrealist, and believe the ultimate meaning of a work of Art is a sum of things, and is not necessarily the same for everybody.
I hate wordy and generally meaningless "Artist Statements", and generally regard it as pretentious bull. A work of Art has many levels of meaning, and shouldn't need explanation. BUT FIRST and foremost, it HAS to draw you in on a basic visual gut level. When I enter a gallery, I look around for a piece that calls me. Unfortunately, in those days of curatorial modernism, there sometimes aren't any. I just walk out. I don't want to have to read a bunch of fuzzy explanations to appreciate something that doesn't look like anything to me. Now, that's my view of things.
Some people don't dig any further than appearances and are perfectly happy getting it on the first level. That's why there has to be a basic first level. Other people read it on a deeper level, sometimes because they actually understand exactly what I meant, sometimes because they find a completely different meaning that I never even intended. That's fine. How many times have people asked me at a show: "What does it mean?". My answer usually was: "I have no idea, you tell me!".
Anyhow, enough ranting and raving on the subject. Let me try to answer Mary's question before she asks it again. The paintings below kind of sum things up.
I want to show Frida's triumph over tremendous physical and mental pain (bordering on torture on the part of both her "doctors" and Diego), and her great thirst for life and gusto despite it, with yet the constant looming presence of La Pelona (death). As she said herself, "Pinche Vida"(Bitch of a Life), but also "Viva la Vida!". I am primarily interested in her way of (literally) putting her best face on every day and getting the most of it, hiding her vulnerability behind a carefully constructed persona, yet keeping her daring and fearless originality.
As important as he was to her, and as famous as he was as an Artist, I don't care much about Diego Riveira, and see him as a rather cartoonish figure: "the sexually obsessed toad". He was not good to her, and she suffered greatly from his obsessive philandering. Only after they re married toward the end of her life did they find some kind of peace.
I am mostly interested in the women in her life, her cold hearted mother, her sister Christina, her friend Tina Modotti, Lupe Marin, Chavella Vargas.
A few more images to complete the picture:
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