This year’s Ouborg Award, The Hague’s most important award for visual arts, has been awarded to painter Aline Thomassen. She will receive €25,000 to develop her work and a solo exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
Born in 1964, Thomassen is a Dutch artist who lives and works in the Netherlands and Morocco. Her work, predominantly in watercolour, explores the self-expression of Moroccan women, focusing on female identity and the body.
Thomassen was selected by a jury made up of Alexandra Landré (chair, artistic director of Stroom Den Haag), Jeroen Eisinga (winner of the 2019 Ouborg Award), Hicham Khalidi (director of the Jan van Eyck Academy and curator of the Dutch pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale) and Laura Stamps (curator at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag).
‘The anthropological view of the world is particularly interesting in her work,’ the jury said in a statement. ‘Thomassen is not afraid of the world around her and seeks encounters with the unknown – the other – outside her own bubble.’
For the first time this year, artists were put forward via an open call for nominations, while the award increased from €10,000 to €25,000. Going forward, it will be presented every four years. Launched in 1990, previous laureates have included Christie van der Haak, Marcel van Eeden, Lotti van der Gaag and Hans van der Pennen.
