Frida Kahlo is one of the most mythologised figures in the world, enshrined in pop culture as a bright, colourful icon. But the Mexican artist’s life was much more complicated than that. “It’s inevitable that you get such a top-level story for somebody who has ascended to this demigod status,” says Lauren Ellis, curatorial manager at Bendigo Art Gallery.

Frida Kahlo: In her own image takes the audience deeper into the artist’s life with her personal photographs, clothing and objects, borrowed from Casa Azul, Kahlo’s house museum in Mexico.

“Colour was really something that she lived, as well as put on canvas,” Ellis says. “How she dressed and styled herself and constructed her home, and the way that she posed for and collaborated with photographers, and her politics. These things were so interlinked with her painting and drawing practice.”

Kahlo’s disability, often erased in pop-cultural reimaginings, is evident in the exhibition through orthopedic corsets and aides. “She drew inspiration and material from her disability, but she also really stamped her creativity onto the world of medication and medical intervention in a way that is quite modern about retaining your agency,” Ellis says.

The exhibition features several of Kahlo’s original drawings, some of which have never travelled to Australia before—but the focus is primarily on objects that reveal the complex and fascinating person behind the art. “The photographs of her are the viral thing, more than her artworks,” Ellis says. “She styled this completely mesmerising silhouette and adorned herself so carefully and used colour pattern composition with such skill to really control the gaze of the viewer, and her gaze back to you.”

Frida Kahlo: In her own image
Bendigo Art Gallery
15 March—25 July

This article was originally published in the March/April 2025 print edition of Art Guide Australia.