“My Grandparents, My Parents and I” by Kahlo

Kahlo’s painting “My Grandparents, My Parents and I” gives off a very gloomy feeling through muted colors and a dreary blue sky. As a result of the dull colors throughout the painting, Kahlo’s mother Matilde Gonzalez stands out with her largely scaled body in a bright, white wedding dress. Nearing the bottom of Matilde Gonzalez’s dress lays Kahlo as a fetus, attached to the dress by an umbilical cord. Next to Kahlo’s mother sits Kahlo’s father wearing a black suit. Above both of Kahlo’s parents are portraits of her grandparents. On the left, her maternal grandparents hover above a desert-like area where a cactus grows representing her Mexican roots. On the right, her paternal grandparents hover over the sea representing her father’s foreign origin. Under her grandparents starts a deep red bloodstream that flows down the image, surrounding Kahlo’s parents and ending in the hands of young Kahlo. Young Kahlo stands almost directly in front of her father while her feet stand in the garden of her childhood home which he built. Her placement in the photo shows both her connection with the house she grew up in, but also the deep connection she had with her father. She wears no clothes unlike her parents and grandparents demonstrating her disposition as a child of two different cultures. Young Kahlo also demonstrates her position in the ending of her family’s bloodline. She grasps the bloodline in one hand signifying her inability to continue it any further. In addition to this, a sperm swims away from young Kahlo towards the ground, worthless in the continuation of her family.