Denise Abadies, Justice for Ana, 2023
My final self-portrait project is inspired by Ana Mendieta. I’ve found myself thinking about Mendieta a lot after learning about her activism, art, life, and death. I wanted to embody her spirit and the themes she explored in her art for my final self-portrait. This is a mixed-media sculpture made from coconut fiber, wood pieces, fake flowers, sand, and Spanish moss, with a plastic skull model covered in fake blood with eye sockets painted with black acrylic paint.
My idea was initially inspired by Mendieta’s Untitled: Silueta Series. I wanted to incorporate Mendieta’s connection with the earth and the female body. “She wanted to leave her mark in nature. It was kind of like a reconnection with the earth. And she speaks about it, she said that she felt that because she was torn away from the motherland, from Cuba.” (Raquel Cecilia) I feel like I can relate to Mendieta on many levels. I also feel disconnected from my Filipino roots because I wasn’t born in the Philippines. My parents didn’t teach me how to speak Tagalog. According to them, we’re in America and Americans don’t speak Tagalog. They thought that we didn’t need to learn Tagalog. Most of the Filipino traditions that I’ve grown up with are religious but, as I got older, I leaned more toward spirituality than religion. I wish I knew more about Filipino culture outside of religion.
Ana Mendieta, Untitled: Silueta Series, 1978
I also feel inexplicably connected with nature because I love taking care of animals and plants. Replanting and arranging plants makes me feel connected with nature in my everyday life. Arranging this project gave me the same feeling. I started building this project by cutting foam board and turning it into a box. I created a few panels to support the skull and I used an expanding spray foam to keep the skull in place. I arranged the wood pieces, Spanish moss, and flowers surrounding the skull. I tried to form a rough silhouette of a body with the Spanish moss. After I did that, I added the coconut fiber but it didn’t stick to the foam. The foam was no longer tacky. Because the coconut fiber didn’t stick to the foam, I won't be able to transport this very easily.
I got this technique from watching terrarium builds online. People use expanding foam to get coconut fiber to stick to the vertical glass sides of terrariums. If I could start from the beginning I would try to find a slow-drying spray foam or add the layer of coconut fiber first before arranging the decorative parts. I added sand around the skull to emphasize the silhouette of the body. And finally, I painted the eye sockets black and painted fake blood on the skull. I think that the fake blood gave this project its power. I painted the fake blood onto the skull in some of the same areas that Mendieta had on her face in her Untitled (Self-Portrait with Blood).
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| Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Self-Portrait with Blood), 1973 |
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| Denise Abadies, Justice for Ana, 2023 |
“Blood had a number of meanings in Mendieta’s work. One of them was the violence against women.” (Sabbatino) I wanted to point to the violence against Mendieta, resulting in her death. It’s chilling knowing that during her life, she made art about the injustice and sexual violence against women in her community, and her life ended at the hands of her husband. Her husband Carlos Andre was acquitted of all charges related to her murder but I don’t believe that. The way they let him get away with murder is a direct reflection of how they treated women during the 80s. They disrespected women by dismissing their issues. Women were insignificant. Mendieta worked really hard to speak about this injustice through her art and she didn’t deserve to die the way she did. I can’t believe Andre is still alive today. Mendieta could have been alive today, continuing her legacy and she would have been able to see how far women in the arts have come.
“She herself invented an artform called earth body. And these are traces in the earth made with gunpowder, blood, water. In which she explores ideas of transformation, transcendence, rebirth, and regeneration.” (Sabbatino) This is a self-portrait because I feel like I’m in a time in my life when I’m in the middle of a regeneration. When I initially graduated from high school I went to Rutgers University in hopes of becoming a veterinarian. Health challenges forced me to take a break from Rutgers, which ended up being 2 years of soul searching. I knew deep down that I’m an artist and I must pursue it. Learning about female artists and activists during my time at NJCU has woken me up. I have an awareness that as an artist and a woman of color, I’m at a disadvantage. But there were so many women, like Ana Mendieta and other female artists we’ve studied in this class, who fought to have their voices heard and change the social discourse. I think it's important for today’s female artists to learn about the history of women in art so we can continue to take up space and express ourselves. Our female perspective is unique and we must acknowledge the legacies of those who came before us to nurture ourselves and the next generation of female artists.
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| Denise Abadies, Justice for Ana, 2023 |
Works Cited
“Ana Mendieta: Traces/Stopy | Krátký dokument | Galerie Rudolfinum” YouTube, uploaded by Galerie Rudolfinum, 3 Nov 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72Nk0sPfRrU&ab_channel=GalerieRudolfinum
Castillo, Monica. “Overlooked No More: Ana Mendieta, Artist Who Pushed Boundaries” The New York Times, 19 Sept 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/obituaries/ana-mendieta-overlooked.html
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