The artwork “Girl with Death Mask (She Plays Alone)” by Frida Kahlo was created in 1938. It is crafted using oil on metal and exemplifies the Naïve Art (Primitivism) movement. The piece measures 14.9 x 11 cm and falls within the symbolic painting genre. Currently, the artwork resides at the Nagoya City Art Museum in Nagoya, Japan.
The artwork portrays a young girl standing against a backdrop of a tumultuous sky and distant mountains. She is dressed in a pink dress and holds a yellow flower in her hand. Over her face, she wears a large, white, skull-like mask which evokes the theme of mortality and presents a stark contrast to her innocent figure. Beside her, on the ground, lies a second, more grotesque and colorful mask, tongue lolling out, adding an element of the surreal to the scene. The combination of the child’s pose, the two masks, and the desolate landscape provokes a contemplation on the themes of life, death, and identity, as often explored in Kahlo’s deeply personal and symbolic work.
