This March, Broadworks Gallery celebrates the enduring power of Frida Kahlo’s life and legacy in Lust for Life, a group exhibition honouring her art, resilience, and unapologetic self-expression. Among the selected works is TAS artist Katarina’s oil pastel painting Viva la Frida, a deeply symbolic tribute that reflects on Kahlo’s physical suffering, emotional depth, and fierce vitality. Through rich colour and layered imagery, the piece invites viewers to engage with Frida not only as an artist, but as a woman who transformed pain into enduring beauty.

Background to the painting Viva la Frida

Inspired by Frida’s life of enduring physical pain and resilience, this work celebrates her as a heroic figure surrounded by her beloved flowers and magical colours. Central is the traumatic bus accident at age eighteen, in which she was impaled. The blood transfusion alludes to her many surgeries and depicts the orthopaedic corset she was forced to wear.

As a result of her injuries, Frida was unable to continue her medical studies, which prevented her from having children, suffering several miscarriages. Her pose references the tradition of the classical nude, while the ring on her finger, distinct from a wedding band, reflects her complex love life. She extends her hand toward the baby as a gesture of tenderness and care, embodying the motherhood she longed for.

Spiky rocks represent her lifelong pain, and the absence of her right leg acknowledges her late amputation. The owl (afterlife) and the cat (protection and resilience) are motifs aligned with the surrealism of her art.

Congratulations to Katarina on the selection of Viva la Frida for the Lust for Life exhibition at Broadworks Gallery. Being chosen through the Open Call is a wonderful recognition of her artistic vision and sensitivity, and it’s especially fitting that this work will be shown in celebration of Frida Kahlo and International Women’s Day.

If you can’t get to London, the exhibition can be viewed online: https://www.theartistspool.co.uk/