THE HAGUE.- This year’s Ouborg Award, The Hague’s most important visual arts award, will be presented to Aline Thomassen. She will receive the award from the city’s councillor for culture, Saskia Bruines, on Friday 29 November. The award consists of a sum of money of €25,000 to stimulate the artist's further development and a solo exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag. The opening will coincide with the award presentation. The Ouborg Award is a joint initiative of the Municipality of The Hague, the Kunstmuseum Den Haag and Stroom Den Haag.

The jury was impressed by the artist’s exceptionally energetic and consistent body of work. Aline Thomassen creates powerful and colourful images of women in large-scale flowing watercolours. Her works address essential themes such as love, loss, violence, freedom, death, pain and psychological struggles. She does not shy away from contradictions.

From the jury report: ‘The anthropological view of the world is particularly interesting in her work. Thomassen is not afraid of the world around her and seeks encounters with the unknown – the other – outside her own bubble. Her works have a raw emotional impact that touches the viewer, who experiences an encounter that is inviting but also creates a kind of trepidation. It makes us curious about our fellow human beings. Her works express contradictions: the essential themes in life that are both personal and intimate and connect us as human beings.’

Aline Thomassen

Aline Thomassen (1964, Maastricht) lives and works in the Netherlands and Morocco. Her work explores the many ways in which Moroccan women experience and express their identity. She is inspired by the strength and survival instinct of the women she meets. In her female figures, Thomassen attempts to give form to our complex psychological landscape. Many of her watercolours have what the Moroccan-Dutch writer Hafid Bouazza has beautifully described as a ‘cruel tenderness’. Thomassen’s exhibition in the Projects Gallery at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag provides an impressive survey of these monumental portraits in which universal themes such as the female body, motherhood, love and loss form a common thread.

The Jury

The jury for the 2024 Ouborg Award was 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 award has undergone several changes this year. For the first time artists were nominated via an open call for nominations, which alerted the jury to artists they might otherwise have overlooked. The jury is pleased that the city nominated more than seventy artists in a relatively short time. For the current edition, the award has been increased from €10,000 to €25,000 and is accompanied for the first time by a trophy, a work by Jeroen Eisinga, winner of the 2019 Ouborg Award.

The Ouborg Award

The Ouborg Award is The Hague’s city award for visual arts, named after the Hague-based artist Pieter Ouborg (1893-1956). Through the Ouborg Award, The Hague expresses its appreciation of the high level and broad significance of the nominees and the extent to which they contribute to the artistic climate in the city and to its international allure. From this year, the award will be presented every four years. The previous laureates were Christie van der Haak (2015), Marcel van Eeden (2013), André Kruysen (2011), Justin Bennett (2009), Zeger Reyers (2007), Ben van Os (2005), Hans van der Pennen (2003), Vojta Dukàt (2001), Philip Akkerman (1999), Auke de Vries (1997), Martin Rous (1996), Dick Raaijmakers (1995), Tomas Rajlich (1994), Lotti van der Gaag (1993), Gerard Fieret (1992), Wil Bouthoorn (1991) and Frans Zwartjes (1990).

Members of the press are cordially invited to the official award ceremony, which will also be the opening of the exhibition in the Kunstmuseum. This will take place on Friday 29 November 2024 from 6.00 to 8.00 pm. More information to follow.