THE TWO FRIDAS

A famous female painter’s memory, explored.

Using a 1950 entry from Kahlo’s diary (translated by an agency), Folì brings the real and the imaginary together to show the worlds within Kahlo. Recalling a memory from when she was 6, Frida recounts how she formed an “intense imaginary friendship with a girl” her age. To visit this friend, Frida would draw a door while looking out her window, exit through it, and jump through the sign of the Pinzón creamery. At first, Folì’s use of color in the illustrations is minimal, highlighting minute details like small plants and polka dots. But when Frida dives “through the Ó” in the sign, she enters a world of color and life. Folì’s take on Frida’s imagination is populated with colorful Mexican folk elements that make appearances in the artist’s later work. In this world, Frida becomes her artistic self, donning her floral headband and following her imaginary friend’s cues as they dance. When Frida leaves the imaginary world, a more-colorful real one awaits her, as some characters escape­. Folì’s artwork goes beyond the typical bushy eyebrows that characterize Kahlo and focuses on the imaginative aspects of the world created by Frida. The backmatter gives insight to her life as a child who battled an illness that caused her to limp and the importance that being from Mexico played in her art.

Peculiarly beautiful.