Ana Mendieta

       Ana Mendieta was born in Havana, Cuba in 1948.The second of three children,  to Ignacio Alberto Mendieta de Lizaúr and Raquel Oti de Rojas.She was soon exiled from Cuba in 1961 at the tender age of twelve.Which was before the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution. Much of her work expresses the pain,and cultural displacement, with the use of metaphors that depict death, rebirth, and  transformation. In 1966, the year she began studying painting at the University of Iowa, and reuniting with her family.

Untitled ( From the "Silueta" Series)

     Her  earth-body works ,live sculpture, and performance art feature her own body and the natural world.Her paintings depicted themes such as spirituality, feminism, and connection to nature Ana's work explored a wide variety of themes, with her performance art  predominantly to feminism and violence against the female body, while her earth-body artworks responded more specifically to her spirituality and connection to the natural world. 

    She produced Super-8 films and videos,installations,drawings, prints and sculpture, " As a sculptor interested in ritual, staged events in which her actions and objects she used became the art" (Guerrilla Girls 89).She was the first Cuban-American woman to achieve recognition as an artist. 

          In her Silueta series, where she created on on site projects  in Iowa and Mexico, Mendieta carved and shaped her own figure into the earth to leave haunting traces of her body.Mendieta’s work may be considered strongly feminist by some,however,one theme in her early performance art was violence against the female body. 

Untitled ( From the "Silueta" Series)

       Her accomplishments in art came to a sudden and tragic death at her apartment .Where she fell down from the 34th floor of her high rise building.Mendietas husband and minimalist sculptor Carl Andre was "...alleged to have been intoxicated.Husband being charged with murder but aquitted with help of well-paid attorneys." (Guerrilla Girls 89).Which makes us think of what she could have accomplished if she was alive today.

Works Cited

                         http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/comics/article/47684-graphic-nonfiction-the-life-art-and-death-of-ana-mendieta.html

                          http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/bio/?artist_name=Ana%20Mendieta&page=1&f=Name&cr=1

             The Guerrilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art.                

New York: Penguin, 1998