“I’ve come to see Frida,” I overhear a woman telling another, as she admires a collection of perfume bottles. It sounds like she’s popping over to see a friend, not a woman who died more than 70 years ago, and who’d probably never, ever heard of Bendigo.
The speaker could be excused for her familiarity with Mexican artist Frida Kahlo; the latest exhibition at the Bendigo Art Gallery, Frida Kahlo: In her own image, is at times so intimate you’d think it was your bestie’s drawers you were rifling through.
My latest story for Explore Travel, in the Canberra Times, Newcastle Herald and regional Australian family of newspapers, goes to the Victorian town of Bendigo. Here, its excellent art gallery has hosted exclusive exhibitions on Elvis, straight from Graceland, and Grace Kelly’s style and fashion extravaganza from the Victoria & Albert Museum, so Bendigo’s got form, and does its current exhibition, an exclusive retrospective from Mexico, proud.
To read my feature, visit https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8968858/discover-frida-kahlos-life-at-bendigo-gallery/ or see CANBERRA TIME Frida Kahlo – Belinda Jackson
I will say: some visitors have said they were disappointed there weren’t more works of art by Frida Kahlo – I say they’re missing the point. Her art was everywhere – in her clothes and in her hair, in her house and even on the plaster casts that held her broken body together. An indomitable spirit in the face of genuine, heartbreaking adversity. Go see the exhibition, if you can!
Australian expat Denise Green is originally from Brisbane, and has been living in NYC and working from her Long Island City studio for four decades.
