Literature

Ishiuchi Miyako knew very little of Frida Kahlo, the artist, when she arrived in Mexico. She came to know her through her photographs, obsessing over the traces that Kahlo as a woman left on her belongings; the paint stains and stitching which bear the imprint of their owner. There are echoes of her past projects throughout, the same focus cast on the puckered darning of Frida's wardrobe as previously seen in her documentation of her mother's scars prior to her death. Flesh or fabric the scars are the same, in Ishiuchi Miyako's own words she is drawn to them "because they are so much like a photograph… They are visible events recorded in the past". As in her previous work the power of the portrait that emerges lies in the absence of the subject. The images reflect the viewer, acknowledging the fragile traces we all impart upon our environment and belongings.