In the manner of Frida Kahlo
Mexican, 1907–1954
Self-Portrait on the Bus, 2026
Oil on masonite
50 × 40 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.21.5
Moving, 16-second loop ·
She sits on the bus in a red dress with black curls and gold hoops, a woven bag on her lap, and looks at us as if we were the ones who should not be here. Behind her the other passengers are small and simple, and the jungle presses at the windows. A parrot sits on the seat back. Kahlo's *The Bus* is full of strangers too. It did not have a parrot.
The brief
A woman with short black curls and hoop earrings seated on a city bus staring out at the viewer, an invented person who resembles no real painter, other passengers as small folk-art figures, a parrot on the seat back. Mid-century Mexican folk-modernist oil painting, a frontal figure with an unflinching direct gaze against dense tropical foliage, flat saturated greens, reds and golds, small symbolic animals and objects, naive precise detail, a votive ex-voto stillness, matte paint on board. Museum photograph of the oil painting on board, flat even lighting, no frame, no text, no wall, no floor, cropped to the canvas edge.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
