Perspectives

Under My Skin: Emeli Sandé In Search of Frida Kahlo (4x4)

Ημερομηνία προβολής: Μάϊ 11, 2014

Singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé made her admiration for the iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo perfectly clear four years ago, when she had a large tattoo of the artist’s face etched onto her forearm. At the time Emeli had bravely just quit medical school to write her first album. She needed inspiration and saw Frida as a woman who had triumphed over adversity: ‘As an artist it’s the bravery that I wanted a piece of,’ says Emeli, ‘so I feel that her being on my arm is a constant reminder not to be afraid.’ That subsequent first album, Our Version of Events, won Emeli two Ivor Novello awards and a Brit award for Best British Album - and became the biggest selling record of 2012. Now, two years later, Emeli’s writing her second album - and she’s taking time out to re-connect with Frida on an even deeper level. She travels to Mexico for the very first time, to find out more about the artist whose tumultuous life made her not just one of the world’s most famous female painters but a global feminist icon too. Arriving in Mexico City, Emeli visits the bustling and colourful La Ciudadela market, where ‘Frida kitsch’ is everywhere. The artist’s face is even on Mexican banknotes – a sure sign of the love Mexicans continue to feel for their fiery artistic heroine. Emeli too feels an empathy with the artist; both have the duality of mixed race backgrounds, with Emeli’s parents being English and Zambian and Frida’s German and Mexican. One of Emeli’s big ambitions since she first discovered Frida Kahlo as a teenager has been to visit La Casa Azul, or Blue House, where Frida was born in 1907 and grew up. It was here that Frida battled the devastating effects of polio at the age of six, a disease that left her with a withered leg. But worse physical challenges lay ahead for this clever young girl from a middle class family. At the age of eighteen she was involved in a horrific bus crash on her way to the finest school in Mexico, whe