Havana Cuba. — In nañigo language, nkame means “greeting”. A few years ago, a monumental anthological exhibition of the works of Belkys Ayón Manso was exhibited under that name, one of the most extraordinary artists that Cuban art has produced, which is not an understatement considering the generation to which she belonged, in which brought together creators of the stature of Lázaro Saavedra, Esterio Segura, Armando Mariño, Ángel Delgado, Ezequiel Suárez, Ibrahim Miranda, and several others.
In that group of artists from the 1990s, who in the midst of a fierce economic crisis defined the paths of contemporary Cuban art, the work of Belkys Ayón stands out among the most prolific, intriguing and impeccably made. The central theme of his aesthetic production revolved around the myths of the secret Abakuá brotherhood, collage and collography being his most used techniques.
Cheerful, industrious, curious, always interested in the new in art, she shared her time between the workshop and the Instituto Superior de Arte, where she taught. Her poetics convey a sense of inalterability, accentuated by sober colors -black, grey, white- that she used in all possible gradations of her, and in a way of representing bordering on obsession.
Woman, myth, secret, guilt, punishment, are ideas that gravitate around the central axis, the inextricable mystery of Sikán, the one with big eyes and a slender figure, the one that is not allowed, the condemned one. There is something deeply moving about Belkys’s work, something that calls for silence and reverence, even fear.
Perhaps that conjunction of fears and obsessions were undermining the sanity of a creative woman who was too much for herself. Probably there has not been, in the entire broad spectrum of artists who have dealt with Afro-Cuban religious themes, someone who matches the philosophical force present in the work of Belkys Ayón. The constant questioning of the human and the spiritual marked her destiny as a woman and as an artist, to the point of becoming a heavy burden and making her vulnerable to her own greatness.
Belkys Ayón, born on January 23, 1967, shot herself in her home in 1999. She was only 32 years old. From her Her artistic production, exhibited in the most prestigious museums and galleries in the world, and the eternal question about what could have led her to suicide survived her death.
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