News | Gonzo Unit

Thresholds Artists Selected for UK Young Artists City Takeover 2019

Congratulations to Tatiana Altini and Benjamin Jones, our Thresholds exhibitors and juried prize shortlisted artists, who have been selected for the UK Young Artists City Takeover, an international arts festival which will take place in Nottingham, UK in February 2019.

Artist Announcement| UKYA

Nour Malas Selected as Thresholds Exhibition Winner

Untitled design

We are please to announce that Nour Malas has been selected as the winner of the Thresholds exhibition, with a special mention for Benjamin Jones who was the close runner up. Nour was chosen for the prize of a two week solo exhibition by a panel of judges: Anna Schwanz and Rachel Murray, Gonzo Unit curators, Syrago Tsiara, Art Historian and Director of Thessaloniki State Museum of Contemporary Art, Panagis Koutsokostas, Independent Curator and Matthew Chesney, Director of Backlit, Nottingham UK.

Nour Malas is a Syrian artist graduated from Goldsmiths University of London. As an Arab woman raised in the Middle East, her strong familiarity the culture lead her to work with the notions of being a woman within this context. Nour’s work mainly concerns the taboo of intimacy, sex and family relations within an Arab social structure, and its affects. Rather than having a direct feminist approach, Nour creates minimal sculptures using materials such as plaster, latex, fabric and metal, to portray the sensuality of a woman’s body, whether in relation to another or as a being itself. Following Lucy Lippard’s words of ‘materialising anxieties’, Nour’s keen interest in psychology in her research also explores Sigmund Freud’s theory of taboo and sexuality as well as Melanie Klein’s concept of the internal object and the self.

Nour lives and works in London, U.K.

We look forward to working with Nour over the coming months to develop an exhibition in Thessaloniki in 2019.

Gonzo Unit interview with Leftlion