I Always Return

1993, printed 1994

I Always Return, 1993, printed 1994. Belkis Ayón (Cuban, 1967–1999). Collagraph; 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.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Alma Kroeger Fund 2019.227 © Belkis Ayón 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. 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.”