Frida Kahlo

Hmm... I'm not sure whether this is in the right category, but I didn't think that it would appropriate to put this in my usual ' plushies' section, considering Kahlo's got a carved-plaster-fractured-ionic-column as a spine. Oh, and the pins aren't too welcoming either....

This work is going to be submitted to a festival called 'Art Matters'. I don't know whether I'll get accepted but it's worth a shot. My major is Painting & Drawing, so for me to submit something in the sculpture section is rather strange, but not unheard of. Painting is just pissing me off at the moment, so I really needed a change.

The theme I was working with is 'the commodification of art'. In other words, how art is/can become a commodity (i.e. something that has a monetary value, and such a value increases according to its demand/rareness).

In my opinion, when a work is only tied to a price, it loses its 'art factor'. My views and definitions on art are rather intricate, so I won't bore you any further (by all means, if you're interested, feel free to ask me questions). But in a nutshell, I dislike the idea of art as a commodity.

I decided to work with Kahlo because....she's so damn cool! lol. (I really broke the seriousness of my discourse!) That's not the only reason. Pretty much, she lived a tough life. Not only did she nearly die in a bus accident and fractured her spine in the process, but she had to endure drama after drama with her retarded relationship with Diego Rivera (she married him twice!) and of course other turmoils in her life (e.g. not being able to conceive). Her paintings are mostly auto-biographical, and very personal. When looking at her work, I feel as if I'm reading her diary....

And yet, we now SELL this as a COMMODITY?!? wtf is wrong with the world! Selling people's misery...hmm...I guess it's not THAT unheard of...but still.

Anyways, so I chose two works as references: two fridas and broken column.

I merged them together, and altered its appearance, but the ideas remain intact: it's supposed to depict her suffering. There's lots more to say on the subject, but I'm want to keep this as brief as possible since this is DA and not the judges for the fest.

I used the usual stuff (fabric, felt, acrylic paints for the eyes...) and the broken column is carved from a block of plaster that I cast. Making her surprisingly didn't take that long; it's coming up with the concept that's time-consuming.

Anyways, so this will probably be my only serious work, since this DA account is strictly for plushies, and I was debating whether I should post this, and I finally decided that it would make a nice change, and so here it is.

EDIT I didn't end up submitting this for the fest because I REALLY didn't feel like writing an artist statement, and I realised that the fest itself will take up my time; time that I'm not willing to spend since I have a lot of work cut out for me this semester. Maybe Frida will be exhibited in something else someday...