How to Speak About the Unspeakable Pains in Frida Kahlo's Paintings

Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits vividly depict the physical pain and psychological

trauma she endured throughout her life. The striking images and rich textures evoke

an in-articulable emotional response. This study explores the issue of articulating the

unspeakable pain in Kahlo’s self-portraits through a multisensory, transmedia

approach. Given Kahlo’s global appeal, complex medical history, and multifaceted

identity, scholars from diverse disciplines—including surrealist painters, feminists,

psychologists, pathologists, medical professionals, and cultural analysts—have sought

to interpret her work. Art critic and painter John Berger reveals Kahlo’s artistic secret

through his concept of “double sensibility,” which involves a dual awareness of tactile

sensation—both what Kahlo’s skin has experienced and what her hand feels while

painting—while blind art critic Georgina Kleege emphasizes the vital role of tactile

sensation in perceiving her pain, challenging conventional interpretive approaches to

art. This paper argues that Kahlo’s self-portraits require a multisensory,

interdisciplinary analysis beyond traditional visual frameworks. By combining

Berger’s “double sensibility” with Kleege’s focus on touch, it uncovers new

expressive possibilities for pain that transcend linguistic limits. This approach

challenges conventional language use in conveying sensual feelings and suggests

innovative directions for language teaching that embrace embodied and affective

experience. Kahlo’s art serves as a valuable resource for sociolinguistics and language

pedagogy, illustrating how meaning can be communicated through multiple sensory

channels and media. It encourages language learners to engage their full faculties in

expressing complex, often inexpressible human experiences, and, by so doing, to

enhance communicative competence in diverse cultural and linguistic contexts.