Frida Kahlo: a pioneering artist paints beauty out of brokenness

The celebrated Mexican painter has a powerful story about how physical suffering may have the power to connect us to something sublime

Credit: Barbro Andersen under cc-by-2.0

At the Edge of Yesterday, we live into temporal crossroads where past-present-future intersect. The time-travel adventure book series is all about time.

Writing the series has given me insights into how, when and where innovation happens—often in perilous, paradigm-shattering moments.

Much like today.

Edge of Yesterday aims to transform learning through story, interactive engagement and hands-on experiences. Our mission: to inspire young people to pursue their dreams.

Along with the book series, I have developed an interactive learning platform that expands on the books through original essays, science stories, interviews, quizzes, games, art, music and poetry.

Most of these original pieces have been developed by students who have been involved in my workshops, internships, and classes to excite their curiosity, ignite their passions, and engage them in STEM and STEAM learning.

They have been especially interested in raising up the legacy of polymaths whose contributions have been historically overlooked, erased or forgotten.

The stories are not just for young people, but for all of us looking for inspiration, courage and beauty in these dark times. At this historic crossroad, how do we bring the lessons of the past forward to inspire a better future?

Here, a look at how the renowned 20th-century Mexican artist Frida Kahlo wrought beauty out of suffering.

“I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality".

~Frida Kahlo

COMPELLING BEAUTY OUT OF ADVERSITY

Frida Kahlo is one of the most influential Latina painters of the 20th century. She almost never became an artist.

Born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon in Mexico, Frida's childhood was riddled with medical troubles, including polio, possible spina bifida and a bus accident at the age of six that left her in chronic pain and permanently disabled.

It could be that these medical issues were what drove her into an interest in medicine.

However, while recovering from injuries that rendered Frida bedridden, she began to paint. That's when her enrollment at the National Preparatory School's premedical program took a backseat and eventually influenced her artistic ambitions.

Widely associated with feminism, Surrealism and indigenism, it was Frida's work grappling with the triumphs, failings and politics of the body that reflect her past interest in medicine. In fact, her work is being used today to attract more Latinos into the field of medicine.

That began with her own body as, of her nearly 150 paintings, a full third are self-portraits of Frida in various states: traditional portraits from head to bust, depictions of her miscarriages, or wheelchair bound.

Here are four Frida Kahlo paintings¹ that evoke both her artistic talent and her body’s brokenness.

The Broken Column, 1944

A selfie of Frida, standing erect, with nails dotting her body like some acupuncture treatment gone mad, the painting seems to represent the anguish of her suffering. Instead of a spinal cord, her posture is supported by a broken column. Still, she looks straight ahead and doesn't flinch, as if determined to triumph over her body.

My Nurse and I, 1937 & Roots, 1943

Two sides of a similar coin, Frida grapples with the medical realization of childlessness. In My Nurse and I, she is being fed by her "nurse," who feeds her in a plant-like manner. In Roots, the opposite is true: Frida, reacting to previous miscarriages, feeds her motherland - the Mexican desert - with plant-like tendrils emerging from her body. Both have barren tones and in Roots, there's even a crack forming by her body, noting a rift between perception and reality.

Tree of Hope, Keep Firm, 1946

After being confined to a steel corset, Frida Kahlo created a split portrait of herself: one side representing one fissure in the earth bathed in sun is a Frida bearing the scars of painful surgeries. The other Frida, bathed in moonlight representing the other fissure in the earth, is wearing a beautiful gown, holding a pink back corset and a flag with a Spanish phrase: arbol de la esperanza, mantente firme. In English? Tree of Hope, Keep Firm.

An article in The Guardian describes Frida as ". . .one of those artists that people find their way to, not just through the paintings. They come through fashion, style blogs, bios and film.

“They come to the paintings at the end... Suffering is a big part of the story—and she deals with it in an explicit way through her art."

Her art is powerful, but also universal. Her art and her life connect her to us, inspiring us to identify with her beautiful and courageous depictions of another reality—her own.

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Frida Kahlo’s legacy continues to inspire:

An exhibition of the artist’s work, “Frida: Beyond the Myth,” will be shown at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, April 5-September 28, 2025

Learn more about how the artist’s portrayal of beauty through suffering has inspired others in author Emily Rapp Black’s memoir, “Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg,” and this story by the author in The Guardian

Visit Frida Kahlo, and many others, at The Edge of Yesterday.

1. Frida Kahlo’s works are protected by copyright, and not in the public domain. Each work described in this essay is linked in the title of the painting