Belkis Ayón

BELKIS AYÓN MANSO (Cuba 1967 - New York, 1999).
"Preparatory drawing for collography of the work Arrepentida de 1993".
Pencil on onion paper.
The piece is painted by the artist on both sides.
Attached certificate issued by Katia Ayón, State S. Ayón (2011).
It has roughness on the paper, stains on the outer perimeter and restorations.
Measurements: 107 x 75 cm (current measurements of the work); 110 x 87 cm (measurements referenced in the certificate).
This work is an original preparatory drawing for the 1993 collograph entitled "Repentance", which was used as an illustration for the book "Don't ask for forgiveness" by Luis Manuel Pérez-Boitel. In the work the artist portrays the character Sikan, showing his desperation, as he tears his skin as a symbol of ambivalence between what he wants to be and what he is. The artist alludes to the skin as a mask or mask in which man takes refuge, hiding his weaknesses. According to a central Abakuan myth, Sikan once accidentally caught an enchanted fish, which imparted great power to those who heard its voice. When she brought the fish to her father, he warned her to keep quiet and never speak of it again. She did divulge the information, however, to a leader of another tribe. Her punishment was a death sentence. This story is presented in the form of enforced silence in her work, an important theme. His work is often in black and white, such as the work "Arrependida", and consists of ghostly-white figures with oblong heads and empty almond-shaped eyes, which are set against dark, patterned backgrounds.
To date, Ayón has been the only prominent artist to create an extensive body of work based on the Abakuan society. Because the society itself had created very few visual representations of its myths, Ayón had great freedom to visually interpret its myths. Numerous Abakuan rituals are represented in his collographs, many of which are based on Christian and Afro-Cuban traditions. Ayón's work has been widely shown internationally in group exhibitions in Canada, South Korea, the Netherlands and Spain (2010). In 1993, he exhibited at the 16th Venice Biennale and won the international prize at the International Biennale of Graphics in Maastricht, the Netherlands. In 1998, Ayón received four residencies in the United States working at Temple University's Tyler School of Art, the Philadelphia School of Art, the Rhode Island School of Design and the Brandywine Workshop. His work can now be found in the permanent collections of several museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2016-2017, the Fowler Museum organised Ayon's first solo museum exhibition with the help of his estate; the exhibition subsequently travelled to El Museo del Barrio in New York and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City.