"I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better." -- Frida Kahlo Pop culture icon and famed surrealist painter Frida Kahlo is hardly a stranger to us. She has more than 800,000 Instagram followers; people can wear a T-shirt or a pin with her face, though many cannot identify a single painting. Her face, her life, her fashion and her art have sparked an avalanche of merchandise over the years, including books, T-shirts, pendants, dolls, coffee mugs, refrigerator magnets and a gazillion Internet memes. Kahlo's life speaks to a contemporary identity; her fierce independent nature made her a touchstone of the modern feminist movement. She also is a muse for the fashion industry, as shown most recently in the Viktor & Rolf collection at Paris Fashion Week in September. But why does this Mexican-born artist, who died at age 47 in 1954 after creating barely 200 works of art, command such devotion? How did she become, in the words of fashion historian Raissa Bretana, a powerful figure of iconography rivaling Marilyn Monroe? Now, thanks to a new exhibition at the Arkansas Arts Center, we can see why for ourselves.