If you have the time and resources, I recommend exploring the haunting exhibit, Frida: Beyond the Myth, currently on offer at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia. Open through September 28, 2025, this exhibit presents paintings, drawings and mixed-media art pieces by Frida Kahlo, as well as photographs of the artist taken by intimate friends and professional photographers, including Lola Alvarez Bravo, Imogen Cunningham, Julien Levy, Dora Maar, and Nickolas Muray. This thoughtfully constructed VMFA exhibit invited me to consider multiple questions about Kahlo’s work and life.
I’ve always found Frida Kahlo fascinating—inspiring in a difficult, even dark way. She found solace in her art, a respite from the excruciating, ever-present pain she endured after surviving a terrible, near-fatal bus accident. I’ve seen her work in person before, but this time her pain was outshined by her commitment to making art in spite of her pain, using whatever tools necessary to create from a reclined position on her bed post-surgery. Some might assume she was an artist because of her pain, but it’s clear that Frida Kahlo created through all the colors of her emotions—joy, rage, bliss, boredom, and pain. As much as pain is visible in her work, so are her passions, her preoccupations, and her love.
In Kahlo’s work, her own face is the most visible, repeated image, self exposure the most predominant theme. Not only did she incorporate her image into numerous works, but friends, family, lovers, and other artists were inspired to photograph her face as well. The many iterations of her own visage, the multiple versions of self that she propelled onto canvas or paper, or allowed to be captured in a photographer’s frame dominate this exhibit as well.
After seeing so many shades of expression, so many of her moods, it’s tempting to believe that I understand something about her. In the days after I explored this exhibit, however, I began to wonder if she really exposed her true self in these works of art. Had she surrendered herself to be the subject of art and disappeared into it? Or had she transformed herself into art outside of canvas and film? Early on, she adopted the practice of wearing traditional Tehuana clothing, braiding her hair, and adorning herself with Mesoamerican jewelry, essentially creating an intentional, stylized projection of herself that honored her Mexican heritage. Perhaps she was the art, and every photograph, every painting represented a brief, still-frame capture of the living art she had become.
Frida Kahlo’s first photographer was Guillermo Kahlo, her father. The opening pieces in the Frida: Beyond the Myth exhibit are his photographs, in which she poses, sometimes solo, sometimes with others, dressed as a boy. It seems that Frida Kahlo learned early on to redress the power dynamic between artist and muse, creator and subject, by first taking on a persona—becoming art and then allowing herself to be framed.
Experiencing these works by Kahlo and others in person gave me so much to consider about what it means to create and live a full life as an artist. The thoughts I’ve shared here barely scratch the surface. Co-curated by Dr. Agustin Arteaga and Sue Canterbury, Frida: Beyond the Myth is showing at the VMFA in Richmond through September 28, 2025.
Noelle Beverly writes poetry and prose, supports local writers in the surrounding community, and is a member of the BACCA Literary group.
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