I Always Return

1993, printed 1994
(Cuban, 1967–1999)
Image: 95 x 68 cm (37 3/8 x 26 3/4 in.); Sheet: 95 x 68 cm (37 3/8 x 26 3/4 in.)
© Belkis Ayón
Catalogue raisonné: Ayón 93.11
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.
I Always Return

I Always Return

1993, printed 1994

Belkis Ayón

(Cuban, 1967–1999)
Cuba

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