Creator: Keyris L. Manzanares
Title of Project:
The Kaleidoscopic Life of Frida Khalo
URL:
http://rampages.us/kiwismultimodalcomposition/
We all suffer, some more than others. But what is all this suffering for? Is it so
that we can become stronger? Is it so we can learn from our struggles and move forward
to influence others? Is the purpose of suffering to create art that helps others with their
reality? Is our suffering supposed to mean something? When I think of suffering I think
of immense pain and hurt, but deep down I know that it is more than that. I know that
suffering is a form of pain but also a way to dig deep into your persona because it is
through suffering that we truly learn who we are. It is in those moments that we feel like
we can’t walk anymore, in the instances where it hurts to keep breathing, that we begin to
realize how powerful we are. Because you can’t be powerful without pain. You can’t be
powerful without suffering first. There was once a celebrated painter who was often alone
because of her suffering, because no one could really understand her pain and despair and
she once said, “ I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person
I know best.” That painter was Frida Kahlo, a woman who suffered and made art from
her suffering. Frida Kahlo painted images that reflected and explored more complex
topics than those explored and reflected upon in her times.
Her paintings were gruesome but that was her reality. She painted the harsh
reality of her life, of her culture, of the women who surrounded her, but most importantly
she painted the suffering of the world. What is important to note about Frida Kahlo and
her contribution to the art world and humanity is that suffering is powerful, we all will
suffer at one point in our lives and while some might suffer more than others, everyone’s
pain is just as equally important because that pain, that suffering that you will feel is what
is going to build your character, it is going to shape the way you see the world, it will
affect how you talk, how you move, how you eat, how you walk. Therefore, we must
learn to celebrate our suffering because that is what makes us who we are, humans. Frida
Kahlo was an exceptional woman and painter. She was not considered “beautiful” by
that era’s social standards because she has a mustache and her features were very
manly. She suffered a great deal because of the disease she contracted as a child and
because of her trolley car accident.
But what made Frida suffer the most is the lack of love in her life. Her search
for love is what makes her relatable. Because she truly believed that any pain or
suffering she felt could evaporate with just simple love. This is why I chose to do my
multimodal composition Frida Kahlo because she is an exceptional woman who falls
in love and fails and is damaged but she picks herself up and always looks at how
she can move on- how she can make her life be what she wants.
I found most of the content used in my project on the Internet and what I
pulled the most inspiration from was a Vanity Fair article writing about gruesome
and explicit details that I did not know about Frida. I also got all my images from the
Frida Kahlo Foundation because I wanted her straight paintings and not pictures
that were edited in any form. I really enjoyed this project, I got the opportunity to
express myself and research something that I really did want to learn about. What I
learned from doing this project was that multimodal compositions are harder than
they might seem. It’s not just an image with words across from it, it is an art piece, it
is versatile, and it can tell a story through images or just the text. I hope that what
people take away from my project is for them to be unapologetic about whom they
are. We spend a lot of time saying we are sorry these days for being human, for
falling in love with people we shouldn’t, for being explicit about who we are and it’s
time that we stopped. We should be embracing who we are and the people who are
worth our time and take notice are the ones we want and need in our lives.