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Details / Information for I Always Return

I Always Return

1993, printed 1994
(Cuban, 1967–1999)
Cuba
collagraph
Sheet: 94.6 x 68 cm (37 1/4 x 26 3/4 in.); Matted: 115.1 x 87 cm (45 5/16 x 34 1/4 in.)
Alma Kroeger Fund 2019.227
© Belkis Ayón
Catalogue raisonné: Ayón 93.11
Location: not on view
Copyright
This artwork is known to be under copyright.

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Did You Know?

Of Sikán, the subject of this work, Belkis Ayón wrote that “[she] is a transgressor and I see her as such, as I also see myself.”

Description

Belkis Ayón worked almost exclusively in collography, a printmaking technique in which a three-dimensional plate embosses designs into paper, to depict the subject seen here: Abakuá, a secretive fraternal society established by African slaves in 19th-century Cuba. Because the founding myths of the group were not well known and it had no visual tradition, Ayón invented her own. Here, a faceless figure—presumably Sikán, a princess sacrificed following an act of betrayal in Abakuá mythology—floats imposingly above three initiates.
A collagraph print, in shades of dark gray, depicting silhouettes of four figures, each decorated with plants and other nature motifs. The larger silhouette of a figure surrounded by flames floats above three smaller silhouettes who reach upwards.

I Always Return

1993, printed 1994

Belkis Ayón

(Cuban, 1967–1999)
Cuba

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