(Credits: Far Out / Frida Kahlo)
In Frida Kahlo’s 1932 oil, Self-Portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and The United States, the sun rises and sets above Mexico, and nearby, a cloud cushions the moon. She stands upright, straddling the border. Her vision of America’s essence was plainly negative, reduced down to the cogs and wheels of its industrial arm. The clouds that hold her sun and moon are mirrored in a billow of smoke from a Ford factory. Between the plumes sits an American flag.
She and her husband, Diego Rivera, moved to America in 1930. Typically, Kahlo was far more surrealist when translating her inner world to the canvas, but her palpable discomfort at their move to San Francisco was extremely evident. She hated the capitalist culture that ruled there, longing to return to Mexico. It was a strange time for Kahlo because although that period has been dubbed one of her most artistically successful, she was miserable in her personal life.
She retreated to the folk style she first developed in Cuernavaca, all with her usual flair for blending the strange with the sublime – her portrait of Luther Burbank from her American stint captured him, a famous horticulturalist, as half man, half plant. Paying homage to a person’s roots and the places that nurtured their interests was almost more important to her than nailing their likeness.
One prevailing American attitude that irritated her was that even in art circles, she was treated as her husband’s tag-along rather than an artist in her own right. She was resigned to introducing herself as Rivera’s wife, and almost ironically, their work wound up included in the San Francisco Society of Women Artists in the Palace of the Legion of Honour.
They then moved to Detroit, and Kahlo suffered numerous health issues related to failed pregnancies. Her style began to shift towards darker themes like pain, terror, and suffering – likely an echo of her personal life and ushered in a new era for Kahlo. She branched out into frescos and etchings and seemed to shy away from popular Mexican styles in the Detroit years.
Self-Portrait on the Border of Mexico and the United States followed, a pained look at the way she longed for home and resisted American culture. In turn, American audiences never looked at her as a legitimate force during this time – which only reinforced her sense of isolation. In one interview given to Detroit News, in which she likely spoke at length about her creative process – the headline was a casual dismal of her work: “Wife of the Master Mural Painter Gleefully Dabbles in Works of Art”.
It was an emotionally charged period during which Kahlo battled with illness and isolation. Her self-portrait bottled those feelings, laying them out in a tableau of her own homesickness.
