Belkis Ayón’s Mysterious Legends and Monochrome Collographs

Belkis Ayón was a Cuban printmaker known for her allegorical collographs, inspired by Afro-Cuban religion. Her signature technique involves a black-and-white printing process in which a variety of different materials are glued onto a cardboard matrix. Her works are recognizable by their ghostly, androgynous figures with no facial features and almond-shaped eyes, set against dark patterned backgrounds.

The artist centers her work on the Abakuá, an Afro-Cuban secret society that is entirely male. In the early nineteenth century, this fraternity, which had arrived in Cuba, became a nucleus of protection and resistance for its members, enslaved Africans originally from southeastern Nigeria. Part of the artist’s output revolves around Princess Sikan, a character from the Abakuá legend, which tells the story of a secret betrayed by a woman.

The rise of Belkis Ayón, a Black Cuban woman, in the world of contemporary printmaking, together with her in-depth research into a powerful, entirely male fraternity, was remarkable, bold and impressive.

Ayón conducted extensive research into the history of the Abakuá, with particular emphasis on the most important female figure, and the only one in the religion: Princess Sikan. According to a central Abakuá myth, Sikan accidentally caught Tanze, an enchanted fish whose voice gave great power to those who heard it. When she brought the fish to her father, he warned her to keep quiet and never speak of it again. She nevertheless disclosed the information to her fiancé, the chief of an enemy tribe. Her punishment was a death sentence, and with her, Tanze also died.

This legend is a major theme in the artist’s work. The concept of imposed silence is evident in the absence of a mouth on all her figures. Belkis Ayón’s depiction of Sikan’s betrayal in her collographs can be seen as a transgression because, ironically, Ayón, a woman artist, gives a voice to Sikan, the main antagonist and a woman in Abakuá mythology, which traditionally excludes women. In this way, Belkis rebelled against a sexist, patriarchal culture that claims to be rooted in Cuban society, by highlighting the female presence within the religion.

Although my work deals with a theme as specific as the beliefs, rituals and myths of the Abakuá secret society, that does not mean it is devoted solely to the people who practice and profess this faith. Above all, I am interested in questioning human nature, that fleeting feeling, spirituality, through which my art can be appreciated by a universal audience, although it is very difficult at first glance to escape the impression, the forms and the image.
[Text written by Belkis Ayón c. 1993, in the State’s archive.]

Retrospectives of her work have been presented at major institutions such as the Fowler Museum, El Museo del Barrio, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Museo Reina Sofía. Her work is part of the collections of the Museum Ludwig, the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art, the Norton Family Foundation, and the Wifredo Lam Center of Contemporary Art.