Ana Mendieta

Ana Mendieta was a Cuban American performance artist. She worked with video, sculpture and photography, often incorporating multiple or all of these media into her pieces. Her work was generally autobiographical and focused a lot on ideas of feminism, violence, gender and belonging. She worked a great deal with natural material and was known for her "earth-body" artwork. The Allen actually has multiple pieces by her, some of which are on display right now in the Religiion, Ritual, and Performance exhibit in the Modern and Contemporary Art Wing. I think her work is subtle and delicate, but is powerful and dark. Sometimes I find her video's disturbing in their quiet statement, but I know it's something important that I need to pay attention to.