Miradas de Mujeres

It’s ¡ARTE VIVA! in Collier County - a year-long celebration of Mexican art and culture that includes museum exhibits and live performances in various participating venues such as the Naples Art Institute, Naples Botanical Garden, the Baker Museum and Marco Island Center for the Arts.

Now through June 11th, the Naples Art Institute is featuring Miradas de Mujeres: Isabelle de Borchgrave and the World of Frida Kahlo. Belgian artist de Borchgrave’s colorful, hand-painted recreations of Frida’s world are all made of paper! It took her three years to create Miradas de Mujeres, which means “Women’s Gaze.” The exhibit displays replicas of Kahlo’s clothes, furniture, pottery, animals, and the famous Casa Azul (The Blue House). Working from photographs, paintings, and cultural scenes, de Borchgrave skillfully works with paper by pleating, braiding, crumpling, ironing, painting, and dyeing to mimic the looks of fabric and fool your eye. Nothing simple about this process, but in the end –de Borchgrave crafted a stunning world of Kahlo from simple paper.

Kahlo was known as a “Mexican painter that loved fashion; an artist who captured her flaws on her own canvas and who adored her Mexican heritage and its people.” At a time when European fashion was in vogue in Mexico, Frida showed her love of Mexico by wearing traditional Mexican clothing, building a lifetime persona around her Mexican heritage.

Throughout the exhibit, we recognize Frida’s well-known figure and unibrow; she wore braids with flowers and colorful ribbons on top of her head and meticulous embroidery on most of her clothes. She mixed and matched colors and textures, and fashion magazines tried to copy her iconic style.

Frida’s mother was born in Oaxaca, a region popular for the Tehuana dress and known for its colorful blouses, skirts, and embroidery. Let’s not forget the jewelry – mostly gold - which was a symbol of empowerment. The exhibit is a vivid celebration of Frida’s Mexican roots.

You will also notice Frida’s European heritage from her father, the German photographer Guillermo Kahlo. She combined a traditional Mexican embroidered blouse with a more European-style skirt. Her paintings used vibrant colors inspired by her natural surroundings and influenced by both the culture of Mexico and her European heritage.

Also visible throughout the exhibit is Kahlo’s animal menagerie consisting of macaws, parrots, spider monkeys, an eagle, assorted types of dogs, chickens, a deer, and a Mexican hairless dog. You will also see amazing paper sculptures of Kahlo’s plant collection as if looking at her courtyard at Casa Azul filled with cacti, lush climbing vines, and native plants.

I wrote about Isabelle de Borchgrave’s first Naples exhibit, “Fashioning Art from Paper” (Coastal Breeze News, February 15, 2019), where she portrayed the History of Fashion. This 2023 exhibit about Frida Kahlo is just as stunning and a “must see in person” event!

For information on how to purchase tickets go to naplesart.org.