Born: 1982, Libya
Died: June 9 2020
Country most active: Canada
Also known as: NA
Libyan-Canadian photographer Arwa Abouon was born in Tripoli in 1982 to an Amazigh family. Fearing the Gaddafi regime’s recruitment of young men, the family emigrated to Canada the following year to protect their sons.
Abouon earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Montreal’s Concordia University in 2007, majoring in design art. As a professional artist, her work was heavily influenced by her experiences as a Muslim woman living in a Western culture. She often incorporated traditional Islamic customs, clothes and icons with Western symbols, and stated that her goal was “to sculpt a finer appreciation of the Islamic culture by shifting the focus from political issues to a poetic celebration of the faith’s foundations.”
Vogue Arabia observes, “The power of Abouon’s work stems essentially from three intertwined elements: her deep understanding of the language of visuality, her ability to make life her main source of inspiration, and her grasp of the boundlessness of cross-cultural vision.”
Her work has been displayed in Canada, the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Best known for her photography, she also worked in other media like drawing, printmaking, video, and three-dimensional works like lightboxes. Her large-scale (3m x 2.84m) Al-Matar Rahma (“Rain is Mercy”), created for Culture Village Dubai featured a woman in the positions of Muslim prayer, wearing different abayas in each image to create a rainbow against the blue sky backdrop. Her Mirror Mirror, Allah Allah diptych, which contrasts a white hijab- and dress-wearing version of herself with a black shirt and pants-clad version, provides commentary with “deliberate visual simplicity and humour,” according to critic Valerie Behiery.
Abouon died from a sudden medical crisis in 2020, but details were not made public.
Read more (artist’s website)
Read more (Vogue Arabia)
Read more (Wikipedia)
St-James Cathedral, Montréal, Qc. 2018 from Arwa Abouon on Vimeo.