This thesis explores physical art objects, practices of body art, and performance art and their connections with ephemerality and mourning. Janine Antoni, through her pieces Gnaw (1992) and Loving Care (1993), introduced a new form of making where the female body exists both as tool and as the conceptual framework for artwork. Similar ideas were explored conceptually by the artists Adrian Piper and Ana Mendieta before her. Antoni demonstrates the power of female artists using their body as tool, and her works subvert the expectations of the academy and broader social norms of femininity. These works explore themes of mourning, echoing the loss of our bodies, which decay over time, through the use of non-archival materials. It was revolutionary in the artworld and in culture at large for Antoni to use the body as a tool and conceptual framework in the making of these ephemeral works.