1. Self- Portraits:
Displaying Who I Am

2. Visual Symbols
Symbols are used for many reasons: they may convey a message which would otherwise be difficult or impossible to create in a work of art.
Through symbols the artist can portray what he or she is thinking, interests, ideas, and emotions.
Symbols can be pictures of objects or representations of items and feelings.

4. Symbols in Art: Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo was an artist from Mexico and was born in 1907.
She loved to draw when she was a child, preferring to be alone than playing with her sisters.
During her life, she had many, many medical problems and injuries that caused her a lot of physical pain; At age 6, Frida caught a disease called polio, which damaged her right leg. When she was 18 she was in a terrible bus accident that broke her spinal cord, collar bone, ribs, pelvic bone, leg, foot, and shoulder. An iron rail pierced her torso and through the terrible injury she was never able to have children. She was in an enormous amount of constant pain and had to be in a body cast for 3 months. Even after the case was removed, on and off for the rest of her life Frida would spend months at a time lying in bed or in the hospital: during this time in bed she painted what she felt and saw.

5. She used many symbols in her work to express how she was feeling, what was of importance to her, and who she was as a person.

6. Hummingbird symbolizes hope and good luck in Mexican culture
Hummingbird symbolizes hope and good luck in Mexican culture. However, audience may notice the black cat- known as bad luck symbol- taking its place behind the right shoulder of Kahlo.

7. Frida Kahlo's Self - Portraits