Lidiya Solomon Wins Southnord’s Up Next 2024 Open Call

24 Jun

Lidiya Solomon, a 27-year-old Oslo-based artist, wins the Southnord UP NEXT 2024 open call. This annual event shines the spotlight on emerging Afro-Nordic artists, providing a platform for new voices in contemporary art.The award is a month-long solo exhibition at Southnord's art space in Stockholm.

Born in Ethiopia, Lidiya nowstudies at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Her work explores themes of displacement, identity, and challenging stereotypes related to sexual identity and diaspora expectations. Through painting, assemblage and interactive installations, she exploresexistence, attempting to capture the multi-layered perspectives of being human. She pays attention tothe unconscious movements of her subjects, capturing them inscenes that standindependently like frames from a movie. Through the deliberate choice of the models in her images, she expresses different aspects of herself.

This year's theme focuses on re-imagining a currently turmultious world through art. "Lidiya's exploration of displacement, her innovative use of recycled and repurposed materials, and her ability to capture unconscious movements in her images offer an interesting potential to visualise an alternative of the world we live in," says Marcia Harvey Isaksson, founder of Southnord.

The exhibition delves into the artist's personal and cultural reflections. Lidiya's work often incorporates recycled materials, adding layers of meaning and depth to her pieces. The materials she paints on are found wooden boards or used canvases from other painters. This process, she says, allows her an opportunity to fail or sometimes to begin anew, serving as a means of preserving the memories and histories of those who previously used the materials.

The exhibition opens on 5 September 2024 at Southnord's art space in Stockholm.

Exhibition Details: