Gareth Sansom’s Tree of my life is distinctly autobiographical, as inferred by the title and the various elements within the composition. These include photographs of the artist as a boy and as a young, cross-dressing man; the title of the Ingmar Bergman movie The Seventh Seal 1957 that Sansom first saw in 1962, around the time his father died, which explores death and the meaning of life; a reference to American-born music entrepreneur Lee Gordon and the Sound Lounge, the Sydney venue that he had a small interest in; and the surname of rock-and-roll legend Buddy Holly, who died in a plane crash in 1959 at the age of only 22.

The artwork dates from a period in which Sansom attracted a controversy with a series of self-portraits that blurred gender distinctions. As he has described:

I began disguising myself as a woman because I felt it was the least predictable surprise I could give to people [and] was something completely unacceptable to the average Australian male.