Wings to Fly: Frida Kahlo

'I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.' For many she represents triumph over suffering, but to Frida Kahlo, life, body and art were entirely intertwined. Kahlo – friend, lover, teacher, patient, survivor, revolutionary – endured polio and scoliosis as a child, and then, at the age of 18, survived a catastrophic bus accident. Over the next 19 years she was to undergo over thirty surgeries. Yet her work, her magical, jewel-coloured paintings, her heartfelt, visceral art, continued to flow. Using new translations from her diary, letters and interviews, Wings to Fly juxtaposes Kahlo’s paintings with her writings, and illuminates links between the personal and universal, the physical and imaginative, the pain and resolve – to truly inspire. 'Feet what do I need them for, if I have wings to fly?'

'I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.' For many she represents triumph over suffering, but to Frida Kahlo, life, body and artwere entirely intertwined. Kahlo – friend, lover, teacher, patient, survivor, revolutionary – endured polio and scoliosis as a child, and then, at the age of 18, survived a catastrophic bus accident. Over the next 19 years she was to undergo over thirty surgeries. Yet her work, her magical, jewel-coloured paintings, her heartfelt, visceral art, continued to flow. Using new translations from her diary, letters and interviews, Wings to Fly juxtaposes Kahlo’s paintings with her writings, and illuminates links between the personal and universal, the physical and imaginative, the pain and resolve – to truly inspire. 'Feet what do I need them for, if I have wings to fly?'