Frida Kahlo is an artist close to my heart as I am also an artist who suffers from Chronic Pain. Cancer Sun, Frida Kahlo created a great body of work that shows true commitment to her art despite suffering from pain throughout her life. Frida had a Taurus Moon and Midheaven giving her firm resolve and the ability to build her life despite the great sacrifices she would make to do so. A stubborn streak and love of family also kept Frida in a marriage that was tumultuous. With a Cancer Sun, Frida’s painting was very personal and true to herself while a Leo rising and Mercury made the work dramatic. Being true to her to her own reality yet reaching out to others would have been important to Frida with Jupiter, Sun and Neptune all in Cancer in the 11th house. Making her reality known to all who could relate would be important to a Cancer who had Neptune in the 11th and she would find a way to do so using art (Neptune) and doing mostly portraits of herself and her own reality.

Making communication even more important would be Frida’s Venus and Pluto in Gemini in the 10th. Frida’s Saturn was in Pisces in the 7th house and, indeed, Frida had relationships that were trying not to mention her literal marriage to her pain that would taint her life throughout. A personal battle with pain is like having another person inside of you that you must care for daily and that you cannot ignore, in essence making two of you, the pain, and yourself.

A Cancer woman with Jupiter in Cancer as well as Neptune, Frida experienced life very strongly as a woman. She expressed greatly through the first person as she was often alone with her pain. She has been championed for her art showing “pain and passion,” and she has also been an idol for women for showing through her work and her art’s “uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.” Frida was true to her home and is said to have had the traditional Mexican folk factors despite being said to be “surrealist.” Frida had an individual voice as a painter and when we think of artists, that is all we can ask for them to deliver.

Mars and Uranus in Frida’s chart are in Capricorn and Frida did show herself a leader as well as one who struggled with violence both in her body as well as an an artist as she struggled to be noticed and taken seriously as a painter throughout her life. Frida had an accident as a young girl when a bus she was riding hit a street car and this left her with a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, eleven fractures in her right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot and a dislocated shoulder. A handrail pierced her stomach and uterus leaving Frida to have reproductive problems all her life. All told, Frida would have 35 operations to save her life and attempt to heal her. Frida’s Taurus Moon would be important in her willingness to fight for her life and to fight to live with such pain as she suffered all though her adult life. The experience for a Cancer Sun is always a personal and emotional one and Frida showed us her feelings and experience in her art. With Leo rising, Frida had great drama in her work and no matter how many paintings she would do of herself, each one would be individual and show us something different.

With Saturn in the sign of Pisces in the 8th, Frida was expressive in the area of her sexuality, and being a Cancer, she experienced her womanhood completely despite her battle with pain. She would take as a lover and later marry the painter Diego Rivera who admired and encouraged her as an artist. It would be important for Frida, as a Cancer woman, to admire her partner and to experience respect from them as well with her Leo rising demanding it. Frida received both respect from Diego as well as mentorship and this would be seductive to Frida. They would marry twice with both marriages being full of drama. Frida was openly bisexual and had affairs with both men and women in her life. It is interesting that with Chronic Pain, sex can relieve the symptoms at times and Frida was openly loving. It is interesting that one of Frida’s lovers was Josephine Baker who was also an artist but one whose body was her instrument of expression. Both Frida and Diego would have affairs throughout their relationship yet see each other as family even when living in different but very close quarters. Family, again, is important to a Cancer Sun and Diego, being that she met him young, was part of her family and her partner in life as she saw it. No matter how intense their marriage would become they would eventually reunite and after Frida’s death, Diego would say that the most wonderful part of his life had been his love for her. For Frida, with Mars and Uranus in the 5th, relationships were important and open flirtations were common.

Frida’s style in life was one of dressing in the classic Mexican style of dress with colors and shawls in great number. Frida was always dressed in the loosely-flowing, Mexican dresses and capes that would help her pain and not lie too heavily on her body. When one has Chronic Pain it is important to have soft fabric on the body and Frida was no exception to this rule. Frida wore the cotton fabric that was deeply dyed to bright colors that were popular in Mexico at the time, but even when traditional Mexican dress was not so prominent, it served Frida to dress this way all of her life. Her paintings show us many moods and feelings as they are largely of her and her reflection upon herself and her experiences. Frida had her hair deeply black and mostly slicked back to show her eyes that were intense and made more so by a prominent brow that overshadowed her eyes and made her look even more dramatic. With Leo rising, Frida did care about how she looked and dressed very dramatically as well as kept her face as full of drama as she could. Frida cared how she presented when it came to the public and dressed to seduce as well with her open sexuality that was so active in her life.

To truly experience Frida Kahlo’s style one should not only study her photos but also her work as an artist, for she painted herself most often and had ample opportunity to style herself in this way. She is a fascinating artist and person when you take into consideration her work and her burden as a person with pain. Frida had the motivation and control of her emotion to put out a body of work that would become more and more important after her death despite battling her body all her life. Her creativity would allow her to devise positions in which she could still paint while she was suffering from her pain and her paintings show us this as well. I highly recommend doing a bit of research on Frida to see a great artist that was true to her origins in her work as well as strong as can be as a person while doing it.