Frida+Diego 4Evr

Images of Frida Kahlo have taken on a cultish feel, especially among younger women–and not only those of Mexican ancestry. I suspect it is because of her striking self-image and her willingness to not be defined by European-style customs that were prevalent when she was growing up. Her rejection of European sensibilities went even further when she adopted native Mexican dress and wore flowers in her hair. For that day and age–the early 1930s–she was shocking. (And being shocking is not a bad thing for an artist!)

Her husband Diego Rivera was known internationally for his enormous left-wing political murals in Mexico and equally controversial political–and painted over–murals in the U.S. Together they may be Mexico’s most famous art couple–even when they fought, divorced, remarried, fought some more and eventually died. The art each created lives on.

Romantic image? Well, maybe...

Well, somehow a romantic image of these two has ended on a wall of an ultra-modern building behind the Mercado San Agustin–an upscale capitalist venture if there ever was one. I wonder how Diego Rivera–a supporter of the oppressed working class–would feel about that?! Clutching a painter’s palette and brushes, he seems to be looking almost side-eye at her and she, not looking at him at all, is holding in her hand is the yin/yang symbol. Then there are all those skulls and skeletons in fancy dress… Oh, the symbolism! (But I’m not sure what it all means.)

This mural was painted in 2016 by Rock “CYFI” Martinez. He’s the same artist who did the famous “Goddess of the Agave” mural one year later, putting his girlfriend, Brandi Watkins, who is the model for the image, among the quasi-immortal mural figures in Tucson. Of the two murals, I like Goddess of the Agave best. It is original and so Tucson.

True Confession: I often wear a colorful hair band, inspired by Frida Kahlo, but I’m not brave enough to wear one with big flowers.