Frida Kahlo’s work is a must-see. Her identity as a Mexican woman as well as her boisterous vibrancy, sexuality and all-encompassing love for Diego Rivera are all prominent themes in her powerful, personal work, which is on exhibit now through Sept. 28 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Born in 1907, Kahlo lived through the Mexican Revolution, an experience which no doubt informs the folkloric influences in her painting and gestures to the indigenous Mexico that comes alive in her self-explorations. But intertwined with issues of identity and culture is a more brutally personal discussion of the body. Her own body was frail and debilitating for much of her life. Following a tragic bus accident, which should have killed her, Kahlo was physically challenged recovering from an impaled abdomen and almost entirely crushed limbs. This physical state restricted her movement and prevented her from having children; an urgent longing that recurs in her graphic work.

The depth of Kahlo’s art was intriguing and I found myself in heated thought, passing judgments over her life — the virtues of her relationship with Rivera, or her androgyny, sexuality and beauty — merely by looking into her paintings. Yet I also sensed the need to connect the work to the woman. She used her life as her subject, and the result yielded a pleasingly repellant, incredible, inexplicable beauty.

Kahlo’s captivating style could not upstage her formidable life. Indeed, her work deals largely with personal themes of identity and nation, as well as the narratives of her turbulent love story with Mexican muralist Rivera, whom she married twice and continued to dote on powerfully despite his many affairs.

Her relationship with Diego dominates many works, including the largest work, “The Two Fridas,” which documents the two women in her — one that Diego used to love and one that he abandoned, their open hearts attached to one another by a blood line. This work is certainly the most daunting in size and the powerful physical imagery make it a very striking contrast to the smaller works, such as the intricate “Self Portrait on the Border Line between Mexico and the United States.” This one, like others, contains dense detail in a delicate and small painting, which viewers crowd around in order to decrypt.

Self-portraits seem to take up the bulk of this collection. Perhaps they are more powerful, despite the paradoxical stern stance of the subject. Expressionless eyes, crowned by her characteristic eyebrows, stare just beyond their viewer’s gaze. Kahlo’s regal stance is decorated by her voluminous clothing and her rosy cheeks enlivened by warm colors. Natural imagery surrounds her; monkeys, a cat, parrots and butterflies decorate her many portraits. But the viewer’s eyes return again and again to Kahlo’s face, both blank and deeply contemplative, loaded with powerful emotion.

The gentle cultural references, dualities and symmetries cry out in creative bold tones while her face remains constant. Her earrings and hairstyle may change, but her face remains devoid of movement, a surprise given the shocking personal insights of these pieces. Sometimes Kahlo is depicted weeping, as in “The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Diego, Me and Señor Xólotl,” which continues to occupy my thoughts. To me, this painting is a warm call for universal love and safety, yet it is so moving as it occupies a precarious space between achieving this desperate wish and depicting its own naivety and acting instead as a monument to its very failure.

Lines of people waited to see her work and a collection of photographs of her life this past weekend. The echoes of their feet on the polished floor were in concert with the tapping of fingers on tickets and brochures. The crowd hummed excitedly in anticipation of this painter’s collection, whose life — as her work — was colorful and vibrant, yet emotionally heavy. Despite the crowds and the struggles to get close to her often astoundingly small paintings, the exhibition is a moving, fascinating visual spectacle. And what’s more, it is in spirit with Frida’s fixation with community that the gallery be filled to capacity and that viewers be forced to mumble excuses as they shuffle past one another and make eye-contact over her stark, demanding works.

The exhibit is on display for only a few more weeks. Catch the Frida Kahlo exhibit before it leaves the SFMOMA Sept 28. Timed tickets are available, along with more information at sfmoma.org, or by phone at (415)357-4000.