Tree of Life

Ana Mendieta used her own body, together with elemental materials such as blood, fire, earth and water, to create visceral performances and ephemeral ‘earth-body’ sculptures that combine ritual with metaphors of life, death, rebirth and spiritual transformation. In the mid-to late 1970s Mendieta made a series of works called Arbol de la Vida, or Tree of Life. For this particular work Mendieta plastered herself in mud before standing, with raised arms, at the base of a living tree. Tree of Life featured in a retrospective of the artist’s work at the Hayward Gallery in 2014.