Mexican painter Frida Kahlo is legendary for her self-portraits. Utilizing vibrant colors and embracing Mexican folk art, Frida painted striking images that come to exist as poetic autobiographical testimony of a turbulent life. As Mexico’s most famous female painter, her life and work has been the subject of countless books, a movie, and a documentary. She lived a turbulent life afflicted with constant pain. She suffered from physical pain due to an accident that she incurred as a young woman from which she never recuperated, and an emotional pain due to her troublesome yet passionate relationship with Diego Rivera. Kahlo has become an icon of the culture she very much embraced as well as an icon for different social movements such as feminist and gay movements. Her life was controversial due to her involvement in the communist party, her sexual relationships with women, and the manner in which she carried herself. Her work today stands out for the clarity through which her pain and her art fuse together to create. Frida Kahlo lived her pain in every moment of her life, but she also expressed that pain and through doing so provided us with an almost intimate look at the woman who is now legendary for her work.

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The presidential elections are over, but the real battle over Mexico’s future is being fought outside of electoral politics. Two powerful figures have launched other kinds of political campaigns here.