A publication celebrating the print work of Cuban artist, Belkis Ayón, to coincide with the large-scale exhibition held at Modern Art Oxford from 2 November 2024 to 9 February 2025.

Her richly detailed and enigmatic artworks recreate the cultural and spiritual world of the Abakuá* – a predominantly black, male Cuban religious group originating in the tribes and ritual traditions of West Africa – a lifelong source of inspiration for Ayón.

These compositions often focus on the mythical female figure of Sikán, who captured the sacred fish, Tanzé, in her water vessel and was granted sacred wisdom, for which she was ultimately put to death as others sought to steal this gift.

The work defies societal norms and creates space for imagining alternative possibilities for spirituality and gender equality. Telling ancient stories in new ways.

The publication starts and ends with 16 pages of blown up details of selected individual plates, that collectively make up the large-scale artwork. Showcasing the rich density of black tones, the detail in the patterning, and the texture of the debossed reliefs that make up the collagraphic† prints.

Artwork runs chronologically, interspersed with texts by the curatorial team and an interview between Ayón and Jaime Sarusky from 1999, near the end of Ayón’s life. This interview is printed in black on a red uncoated paper section, referencing one of the few highlight colours that she used in her work.

A warm white uncoated paper embraces the aged nature of the prints. This alternates in texture throughout the book: a smooth surface for the image plates, and rough surface for the texts, creating a physical impression as you read through the book. As if each element has been compiled together to form a whole, just like the collected individual sheets within the work. This is further emphasised by shifting page number positions an sporadic uses of single- and double-page text columns.

A bespoke headline and captioning typeface, WH Illumination, was created based on lettering found on the cover of Lydia Cabrera and Enrique Sosa’s groundbreaking exposé of the beliefs of the Abakuá, ‘La sociedad secreta abakuá narrada por viejos adeptos’ (1959), which inspired Ayón to explore the society’s rituals and history further.

Body text is set in Recital, a robust and weighty serif that creates a physical impression on the page. The typefaces exaggerated letterforms give a feeling of bleeding ink and contrast the lightness of the headline typography.