Lovely mud
Hello, do come in, it's a bit damp, but I've got t' kettle on and it's going to be a beautiful day... In my art school wanker days, there was one set of images that gripped me more than anything else...and to this day they still haunt and fascinate me. They are the 'Silueta Series' (1973 -78) by Cuban born sculptor, video and performance artist Anna Mendieta. Mendieta used primarily earth, sometimes flowers, twigs, blood and fire in a ritualistic attempt to create a sense of belonging and re-connect to her exiled homeland. She says she was 'ripped' from her childhood home in Havana (her father was politically imprisoned for eighteen years and Mendieta, along with her sister, were then shuttled between orphanages and foster parents in Iowa, America). Although at first glance, some of these ephemeral images may seem morbid, it was in Mendieta's culture to see blood as a powerful thing and the muddy process was meant to be regenerative. The keen ga...