Mounira Al Solh Wins ABN AMRO Art Award 2023

The eleventh edition of the ABN AMRO Art Award has been won by Mounira Al Solh. The jury describes her as an artist with a keen eye for current events while intuitively and poetically presenting deftly interlinked stories and images from across different cultures and times. As part of the prize, two exhibitions of her work will be opened to the public in November, in the Hermitage Amsterdam and in the ABN AMRO Art Space in Amsterdam’s Zuidas business district.

The eleventh edition of the ABN AMRO Art Award has been won by Mounira Al Solh. The jury describes her as an artist with a keen eye for current events while intuitively and poetically presenting deftly interlinked stories and images from across different cultures and times. As part of the prize, two exhibitions of her work will be opened to the public in November, in the Hermitage Amsterdam and in the ABN AMRO Art Space in Amsterdam’s Zuidas business district.

While making her mark with significant exhibitions within the country and abroad, Mounira Al Solh (Beirut, Lebanon, 1978) remains relatively unknown to a wider Dutch audience. The jury believes her work deserves more attention in the Netherlands and deems this an excellent moment to support her in that endeavor.

In her work, Mounira Al Solh visualizes stories across an ever-changing array of media. She works with textiles, video, language, and music; produces magazines and installations; she paints and gives performances. They are personal stories about herself, her family, acquaintances, political refugees and immigrants, with a special focus on women in the Arab world whose resilience and power is often overlooked. The jury writes that in doing so she gives these untold stories, and therefore the subjects of her portraits, a voice and a place in our history.

Trained as a painter in Beirut, Al Solh left Lebanon and continued her studies in Amsterdam – first at the Rietveld Academie, and later as an artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie. This positioning provided a distance that allowed her to reflect on her homeland and on the Arab world, while simultaneously observing her surroundings in the West with the detached eye of an outsider. Residing alternately in Lebanon and the Netherlands, Al Solh uses these vantage points to combine cultures and experiences.

The ABN AMRO Art Award supports artists and provides a platform for them to reach a wider audience. The winner receives a monetary award of 10,000 euros, the opportunity to exhibit in the Hermitage Amsterdam and in ABN AMRO’s Art Space at its Zuidas head office,including an accompanying publication designed by Irma Boom. In addition, ABN AMRO will acquire work by the artist for its art collection.