Frida Kahlo: Behind the Curtain of Madness

Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.

—Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo was a self-taught revolutionary Mexican artist whose profoundly personal and symbolic paintings explored themes of identity, pain, and the female experience.

Her incredible work, marked by its emotional intensity and her lavish use of vibrant color, has made her one of the most illustrious painters in modern art. There’s no one like her—vulnerable, innocent, yet fierce.

Frida Kahlo built a distinctive body of work deeply rooted in her experiences of intense pain and suffering.

“My painting carries with it the message of pain.”

Her art reflected both the physical trauma of her body after a devastating bus accident and the emotional turmoil of her passionate relationship with her mentor and fellow artist, Diego Rivera.

“There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the train the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.”

She wore her suffering like a luminous crown and raised the bar of what we perceive as art. Through her trials and tribulations, Kahlo carved a legacy of unwavering artistic integrity that still inspires many creative souls today.

Below are a few Frida Kahlo quotes that might inspire us to transform our longings and suffering into artistic beauty and purpose. I hope you enjoy it.

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I wish I could do whatever I liked behind the curtain of “madness.”

Then: I’d arrange flowers, all day long, I’d paint; pain, love and tenderness, I would laugh as much as I feel like at the stupidity of others, and they would all say: “Poor thing, she’s crazy!” (Above all I would laugh at my own stupidity.)

I would build my world which while I lived, would be in agreement with all the worlds.

The day, or the hour, or the minute that I lived would be mine and everyone else’s - my madness would not be an escape from “reality.”

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I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do.

I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too.

Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you.

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I don't give a shit what the world thinks. I was born a bitch, I was born a painter, I was born fucked. But I was happy in my way. You did not understand what I am. I am love. I am pleasure, I am essence, I am an idiot, I am an alcoholic, I am tenacious. I am; simply I am ... You are a shit.

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I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good feeling.

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Pain, pleasure and death are no more than a process for existence. The revolutionary struggle in this process is a doorway open to intelligence.

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I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.

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Truth is, so great, that I wouldn’t like to speak, or sleep, or listen, or love. To feel myself trapped, with no fear of blood, outside time and magic, within your own fear, and your great anguish, and within the very beating of your heart.

All this madness, if I asked it of you, I know, in your silence, there would be only confusion. I ask you for violence, in the nonsense, and you, you give me grace, your light and your warmth. I’d like to paint you, but there are no colors, because there are so many, in my confusion, the tangible form of my great love.

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At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.

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