Vignettes from Art and Life: 3. Belkis Ayón

For one long year, there was a linoleum floor in our kitchen, grippy and patterned. Pastel green lines swirled on a beige background in a regular fashion. It looked pretty and gave the  ‘old-but-call-it-rustic’ kitchen a lively lift. I hated the idea of lino pretending to be wood, tiles or any other noble material: it was simply the cheapest option, in a house that already needed so much work.

About a month after the floor was installed, I spent days and evenings trying to restore it to its original brightness: the non-slip surface caught every single bit of dirt that passed through the kitchen. It was as if each dust particle, every squashed apple piece and yellow cheese crumb flattened by my son’s little feet was purposely placed down in a new, filthy design. I swept and mopped and scrubbed and wiped but the best I could hope for were thin, light smudges on the mottled surface of the floor. 

The incessant wiping brought to mind memories of making collographs in my art degree days - sticking different textured shapes, from orange peel to corrugated board, to a piece of card which, sealed in varnish, was used as a printing plate. Wiping the ink off a collograph plate was joyfully unpredictable when each element held onto the black ink with varying intensity, not unlike the non-slip lino. The final result was almost always quite dark. Any elements that did wipe completely clean shone like the winter sun. 

I recently encountered the work of Belkis Ayón, a Cuban printmaker and master collographer who used those wiped-clean elements to incredible effect. Her large-scale works, often made from several parts, are currently hanging at Tate Modern’s Studio display and greet visitors with their striking contrasts. Monochromatic and mysterious, Ayón’s scenes depict grey human figures without mouths. They are filled with symbols and patterns: fish, crosses and wide-open eyes, communicating that which the non-existent lips cannot. 

Ayón’s work is almost entirely devoted to Abakuá, a secret, Afro-Cuban society exclusively for men. She extensively researched their history and mythology where she found a single female character, Princess Sikán. In this founding myth, Sikán captures an enchanted fish that can impart great power but whose mystical sound is forbidden to women’s ears. In many versions of the story, the princess is killed to ensure the power stays in male hands.

In one image (Sikan, 1991), Princess Sikán sits with her hands in her lap: a snake is writhing on her shoulder, a large fish floats above her head and a small one swims around in a bowl, or perhaps inside her belly. All three animals and the woman’s eyes are completely white, sharp lines frame each shape and call for our attention. Only once we acknowledge their persistence, can our own eyes drift to the other parts of the composition. It is beautiful and arresting. Pleasing and sad.

Perhaps the irony, or absurdity, of comparing Ayón’s work and printmaking processes to my own useless attempts at cleaning the kitchen floor is obvious only to me. A woman scrubbing the floor on her knees is an image from an outdated fairy tale, yet likening it to the process of making an artwork gives the experience a different flavour. In Ayón’s case, the artwork in question is soaked in patriarchal abuse. 

There is both comfort and frustration in the repetitive nature of house chores and printmaking. Scrubbing the floor while remembering the inky details of Belkis Ayón’s collographs makes it feel like practice for greatness.