Libyan-Canadian Artist Arwa Abouon Contemplates Life After Death, Angels & Paradise, in Loving Memory of Her Father
Muftah profiles award-winning Libyan-Canadian Artist Arwa Abouon’s recent artworks and galleries.
by Nahla Al-Ageli
Originally from Libya, artist Arwa Abouon’s beautiful photographs, signature diptychs, and installation works have always been centered on her family and heavily influenced and inspired by her deep Islamic faith. She offers rare and precious glimpses into her life as the only daughter of Libyan parents, the younger sister to three older brothers, and an independent Muslim woman who grew up and still resides in Montreal, Canada.
The 32-year-old has never shied away from publicly sharing her highly intimate search for identity and confronting the predicament of belonging to multiple worlds at once. In her pieces, she utilizes traditional religious and Libyan icons, symbols, and motifs to address the obvious paradoxes of living both as a proud Muslim woman from an Amazigh background and a strong Western person who quite happily fits into Montreal, speaking both fluent French and English alongside broken Arabic.
