Ana Mendieta
Artist Living Researcher
Born: November 18th 1948
Died: September 8th 1985
Cultural Background: Cuban/ American
Mediums: Performance art and installations, temporary sculptures using materials such as rocks, flowers, blood, smoke and her body. Documenting with photography and film.
Influences: Her Afro-Cuban heritage, cosmology of pre-Christian religions and the Catholic symbols and rituals of Mexico, indigenous cultures, Santeria, ritual, myth, spirituality, female body and earth
Themes: Identity, feminism, spirituality and relationship between body and landscape
“I am overwhelmed by the feeling of having been cast from the womb (nature). My art is the way I re-establish the bonds that unite me to the universe. It is a return to the maternal source.”