Belkis Ayon

Untitled. Collography on woven paper.

1996

In her mysterious monochromatic prints, Belkis Ayón explored and subverted the Afro-Cuban religious fraternity of Abakua through her featureless androgynous figures. She often worked in collagraphy, a printing process by which she collaged materials with varying textures and absorbencies onto a cardboard plate before transferring them to paper. During her brief career, Ayón exhibited in such cities as Havana, New York, Berlin, New Delhi, and Lima. Nearly two decades after the artist’s death in 1999, Ayón’s practice received a new wave of interest. Retrospectives of her work have been shown at major institutions including the Fowler Museum, El Museo del Barrio, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Museo Reina Sofía. Her work is in 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.