Artist Statement

Annie Reynolds

November 20, 2017

Painting I

Artist Statement

            My Frida Kahlo inspired piece is a self-portrait, painted on canvas with oil, titled Culture Shock. I used a thin layer of an almost teal, sea foam green color to create a solid background. The background has black, jagged lines across it, giving the illusion of it being shattered. In four separate shards, a small flag has been placed, each flag representing a place that is dear to me. The central focus of the piece is the portrait. The figure stands in the middle of the canvas, and from the top right corner a large piece of red material drapes down and wraps around her body. Only her face and a portion of her nude torso are visible from behind the material and her hair.

            The idea behind this piece was inspired less by the actual work of Frida Kahlo, and more by my emotional response to some of her pieces, as well as the intense love she felt for the people and places in her life. The piece is titled Culture Shock because, from the time I was three years old I have been moving constantly and have therefore developed a skewed sense of what, or rather where, I consider home to be. When people ask me where I am from, I struggle to give them an answer because it sounds something like this, “I was born in the U.S. but have dual citizenship both here and in Mexico. The majority of my life was spent in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, and I have never lived anywhere for longer than seven years. I don’t know where I’m from.” I have grown very fond of places I have lived, but I have also grown very fond of travel. Every place I have lived holds a special place in my heart. The figure in the image is nude because I wanted to show a sense of vulnerability. The shattered background in a way represents my shattered and fragmented background. The red material is a binding substance that ties all of these pieces of my life together.