Belkis Ayón

 Belkis Ayón in front of La Cena (The Supper), unknown photographer, 1988, Station Museum’s Behind the Veil of a Myth exhibition book pg. 53. 

Printmaking focuses on various parts of the world, highlighting artists from Japan, parts of Europe, and the United States. The curriculum itself needs reframing and a new inclusive structure. How else could anyone find out about Cuban artist Belkis Ayón, one of the most tragic Black women visual art stories?

Dormida (Sleeping), collograph mounted on linen, 37 3/4” x 26 1/2,” photographed by Larry Qualls for Artstor. 

Belkis Ayón was born on January 23, 1967 in Havana, Cuba, the second of two daughters. She studied engraving at Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba, receiving a BFA and later joining the faculty. 

Photographed in Zurich, Switzerland, March 5, 1995, from Station Museum’s Behind the Veil of a Myth exhibition book pg. 166.

 Joyously making prints for the 4th Havana Biennale on September 24, 1991, Station Museum’s Behind the Veil of a Myth exhibition book pg. 61.

“I see myself as Sikán, since I am the observer, the mediator and the taleteller: I invent the images based on my studies and my experiences, since I am not a believer, and as I see her, I see myself.”— Belkis Ayón

Ayón’s phenomenal large scale works showcase a profound mastery of printmaking. Her visually striking compositions, created in collography— a process that involves glueing various materials onto a cardboard surface— are noted for containing grainy textures and stark contrast, the dark, harrowing stories of a vast interest in Abakuá, a secret all male Afro-Cuban society. She inserts Sikan as the heroine, the infiltrator, a role that suggests that the woman is indeed the artist herself. The heavy, weighted figures in each mystery etched piece are vivid, highly stylized in patterned attire, yet involve quietly posed gestures by way of facial expression and movement, their ever watching eyes present and alert. Sometimes they have no mouths, no lips. Just all knowing eyes. 

The New Yorker. 

My Vernicle or Your Love Condemns Me, collograph, 79” x 59,” photographed by Larry Qualls for Artstor. 

“The eyes in my work is what impresses people the most,” Ayón said in a 1999 interview. “People are intrigued because the eyes look at you directly. I believe that you cannot hide, wherever you go they are there, always looking at you, making you an accomplice of what you are seeing. And, above all, in these large pieces, you are almost at the same level, the same size, it like someone you are coexisting with somehow.”

Acoso (Harassment), collograph, 39 1/2” x 29 1/2,” photographed by Larry Qualls for Artstor. 

Untitled, collograph mounted on linen, 26 3/4” x 36 3/4,” photographed by Larry Qualls for Artstor. 

Ayón received much praise and honors in her thirteen-year artist career, having exhibited in countries such as Cuba, the United States of America, Russia, Venezuela, Argentina, Germany, and France. She was awarded the Cuban Prize for National Cultural Distinction in the 1996 Biennial of San Juan Prize for Latin American and Caribbean Engraving and the International Prize at the International Graphics Biennale in Maastricht, Netherlands.

Two Cuban Women: Elsa Mora and Belkis Ayon; Untitled (Sikan con Chivo), collograph mounted on linen, 35” x 27 3/4,” photographed by Larry Qualls for Artstor. 

She was an artist-in-residence at the Brandywine Workshop, The Tyler School of Art at Temple University, and the Bronski Center at University of the Arts all three in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Benson Hall Gallery at Rhode Island School of Art in Providence, Rhode Island. Her work is in various collections including Daros Latinamerica Collection, in Zurich, Switzerland, Grafik Museum Stiftung Schreiner in Bad Steben, Germany, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City, New York.

La Familia (The Famioy), collograph mounted on linen, 54” x 96 1/2,” photographed by Larry Qualls for Artstor. 

On September 11, 1999, at the age of thirty-two-years-old, Belkis Ayón committed suicide in her family’s home. Her commendable legacy is continued through an established estate due to the efforts of her older sister, Dr. Katia Ayón (1964-2019). On the twentieth anniversary of Belkis Ayon’s death, the Figueroa-Vives/Norwegian Embassy dedicated the exhibition Towers and Tombs to the sisters.