In 2001, I went to see a group show of Chicano women artists with Dolores Rivera, a fellow grad student from UCLA. It was a small, off-the-grid gallery space, more like a living room, in what felt like a Mexican neighbourhood. The mood was quite colorful and festive, and then there were these women, dressed up in long skirts and ribboned hairdos, like they were all set for the West Hollywood Halloween Parade. Dolores' eyes sparkled "they're all dressed like Frida!". Who's that? I wondered, and as I entered the gallery, there she was, all over the walls in paintings and in print, the famous Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo. Until then, I had never known of any artist who had made such a deep emotional impact on their own people. Frida Kahlo had become a part of the lives of these women. She had become a saint, a symbol. Frida the artist had become Frida the art. Intrigued, I began investigating her work and its history, only to find that the cult of Frida had permeated beyond the artsy intelligentsia. The market was ripe with Frida posters, t-shirts, handbags, fridge-magnets, and gear shift knobs. She had been thoroughly romanticized and marketed as a pop-culture icon. There are aspects about her that are well-known and have been explored in films and books based on her life - chances are, one would know about her bus accident, the tumultuous relationship she shared with her husband, the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, and her affairs with both men and women, including Trotsky, the exiled Russian and David Siqueiros, the Mexican muralist. Then there are the many layers that are lesser-known, like the impact the Mexican Revolution had on her and her participation in social movements or the Marxist socio-political circles with which she was associated. Frida's thoughts, both about her internal self (as a woman and artist) and the external environment (culture, political and social aspects of her time) abound in her works, sometimes symbolically and literally.   The political dimension of her personality became quite explicit towards her final productive years. She embraced the utopian belief that political conviction could free everyone from their pain and suffering. In El Marxismo Dará Salud a los Enfermos (Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick), one of her last self-portraits which she painted in 1954, Frida appears in a corset in the centre, dividing the landscape into two parts - one representing peace and the other destruction. On the left-side, we see a dove flying over fertile plains above the world denoted by a globe, while on the to the other side, there is an American eagle with the head of Uncle Sam which is hovering over a blood-red landscape and an atomic mushroom cloud. There is suggestion of the calamity spreading to envelope the peaceful left side but rescue from this impending disaster is in sight. She employs the narrative style of votive pictures, with Karl Marx appearing as a saint, who strangles the American bird, putting an end to the threat. She abandones her crutches and two large hands support her.  When asked about this work, Frida said "...for the first time, I'm not crying anymore". Frida's art became this wonderful language that helped me understand her revolutionary zeal for life, her misfortune and the pain her short life endured. My most loved painting is Las Dos Fridas (The Two Fridas) which she painted in 1939. In this work, we see the traditional Mexican Frida hurt and exposed, sitting next to and holding the hand of a much stronger and cosmopolitan alter-self, the protector of the weaker one. The heart of the traditional Frida is cut open and we see her with a surgical pincer trying, in vain, to stem the blood flow. The heart of the stronger self is completely intact and is feeding lifeblood directly into the weaker Frida. What emerges here is the Frida that we have all proudly been able to hold up as an icon of strength, leadership and rugged individualism.   What struck me the most about Frida's work is the evident deep personal reflection - it is a visual autobiography, making it intensely original. Her self-portraitures and the landscapes; the agony and the color; Frida and Mexico - I could almost talk to the work. He work is neither pretentious nor overbearing. The paintings are full of moments of turmoil that take you beyond the medium, transforming the viewing into a shared experience. The dreamy, surreal treatment intensifies the imagery. But then it's not dreamy and no where close to surreal. It's Frida and her misery. In Frida's case, I'm overwhelmed by the artist's history and her spirit. Oh, that bloody infectious spirit! She does not idolise herself, she does not depict herself as a divine image, and there is no trace of mystical tension in her works, neither as exaltation of her personality nor as a vision of a hypothetical ideal self. Was she really painting for us? What is it that draws us to her work? Is it her personality or is it the ease with which we share her depression and anger, her sufferings and anguish. Or is it just those flowers and ribbons usually accompanied by a long skirt and petticoat? I wonder what it would be like to meet her. To know Her. And ask, 'How to hold myself.' I can almost hear her whisper, "I paint."     Vishal K Dar is a Delhi-based contemporary architect | artist.   Image courtesy: Los Dos Fridas (The Two Fridas) 1939 Oil on Canvas 173 x 173 cm Museo de Modern Arte Moderno / Mexico City El Marxismo Dará Salud a los Enfermos (Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick) 1954 Oil on masonite 73 x 60 cm Museo Frida Kahlo / Mexico City