John Mavroudis

Artist Statement

Title: Frida

One of the most instantly recognizable faces in history must surely be the woman who documented the beauty, tragedy, and pain she experienced in her all too short life. Frida Kahlo is a constant source of inspiration to me… an artist that, despite constant pain, found a way to push through and achieve an immortality seldom matched. She did this through something that would be easily recognizable in the current age of Instagram and Tic Toe: the selfie… but unlike that lot, there was nothing vapid about her painfully reflective self-portraits. It was a brutally honest accounting of what she experienced. But through most of her work, there was always that face. It links and weaves every painting together into a quilt that tells her story. I’m hypnotized by so much of her work. I’ve drawn two portraits of Frida Kahlo… One simply from my memory of what I thought she looked like…and the other… this piece… based on a photo her father took of her. Both of them were created while listening to a song from the band The Minders, called, appropriately, “Frida.” It’s a song that, just like her paintings, is mesmerizing. So I put it on a loop used it as the soundtrack to create this piece. “Frida she doesn’t care All of her eyebrows bend on sorrow Untie her straight from that chair Give her a halo give it to Frida” I hope this art captures her fierce independence and bravery… for that’s what I feel when I see her photos and her artwork.

About the Artist

John Mavroudis has created dozens of posters for the historic Fillmore series, the Moonalice series, and artwork for his favorite baseball team (San Francisco Giants) and basketball team (Golden State Warriors). Passionate about politics, books, film, travel, sports, and music, John lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his daughter, Athena. He has co-created three New Yorker covers, one of which was also named Cover of the Year. He recently won the Los Angeles Press Club National Arts & Entertainment Cover Of The Year award for his typographic portrait of Joan Didion for Alta Magazine.

@zenpop | @jpmavroudis

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