Frida: Digging Deeper – A Photo Series

I’m not exactly sure when my life began to be influenced by Mexican painter Frida Kahlo – my when it did, my perspective transformed from grey and began flourishing into vivid color. I became fascinated with her work, her duality, her strength, her darkness, her passion and her life – living it so fully that most people wouldn’t have even known that she lived with major debilitating health issues the majority of her lifetime.

As my appreciation was growing and I was learning more about Friducha, I noticed that I was certainly not alone. “Frida Mania” had hit the collective consciousness with a bang. Her image was everywhere – plastered on T-shirts, tote bags, stickers – you name it. While it gives me joy to know that a woman like Frida, in all her irreverence is being celebrated – it feels like her name has become a mass-produced novelty rather than the treasure that she designed her life and her work to be.

The more I saw this image, the stronger my urge was to honor her. And honor her during the month of her birth (July 6th) and death (July 13th). My spirit implored me to share my interpretation of Frida’s global influence and dig deeper into the energy of who she was. We see all of these Frida Kahlo inspired images but what is at the source? What do they really mean? What was her pain like? And if we could turn back the hands of time, would she do anything differently?

“Frida: Digging Deeper” is a series of self-portraits that I have taken with the intention to explore the essence of Frida in her most vulnerable and self-destructive state of Love, looking into her shadow self, her darkness and how that affected her body of work and lastly, diving into the appreciation of the outward adornment of a woman so inwardly complex. Beginning tomorrow, and the next two Wednesdays to follow, I will be posting a new photo story based on the themes of love, spirituality, style in Frida’s life. This is my ode to a woman that changed the face of the feminist movement, gave vision to brown girls everywhere and an homage to the woman that I see myself most in.

Please see the installments of Frida: Digging Deeper below <3 Frida in Love
Frida in Magic
Frida in Expression, coming July 27th, 2016