Mendieta's work "Tree of Life" pictures a naked woman standing in front of a large tree coated in a paint that resembles that of a tree, with small ivies snaking up her legs. The image draws upon the ideas of hybridity, for the woman's body paint is meant to resemble a tree and her posture seems to mimic a tree trunk (her legs and torso), and the crown of branches (her neck with head and her arms), thus making her look like a human/plant hybrid and decentralizing the human. There may also be some divinity to be read, as in Greek and Roman mythology, dryads - tree nymphs - were often depicted as having a crust-like looking skin, branches enveloping their body or outright having some parts of a tree or being a tree themselves (Daphne). Hereby, mixing a hint of divinity might have also been the author's intention, as it was precisely the hybridity of human/animal or human/plant that made gods and deities divine across mythologies (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, African, etc.). The image also represents the posthumanist idea of environmentalism, which highlights the importance of nature in humans' life and thinks of human and nature as one, rather than separate aspects with the human being superior, as it is usually considered so in most other famous paintings.
218 words