Nada Al-Ajoze Wins the Takla Foundation Prize in Damascus 2023

On the evening of April 28, 2024, the halls of Blue House Gallery in Damascus held a rare and luminous kind of gathering, one where art spoke softly yet unmistakably, and where young voices were not merely exhibited, but honored.

During the opening of the symposium “DAMASCUS”, organized by the Takla Foundation in collaboration with The Blue House Gallery, artists, curators, and cultural workers came together for the award ceremony celebrating emerging Syrian talent. The Foundation’s annual prize, launched in 2021 to support artists of Syrian origin navigating a complex political and social landscape.

The first prize was awarded to painter Nada Al-Ajoze, originally from Latakia, for her series Recapturing Our Youth (2023), acrylic on canvas.

Painting the Body, Painting the Psyche

Born in 1997, Nada belongs to a generation of artists who carry memory like a second skin, shaped by upheaval, yet insistently introspective. A graduate of Tishreen University, where she studied painting between 2016 and 2020, she now returns as a lecturer, guiding young artists while continuing her own conceptual journey.

Figures bend, dissolve, or stretch into biomorphic landscapes. Limbs merge into abstraction. Perspective collapses. Time loosens its grip.

Often, these forms emerge against vast monochrome fields, frequently black. But her black is not emptiness. It is density. It is a painting stripped to essence.

No horizon.
No coordinates.
No fixed place or era.

Only the psyche.

Nada explains her approach with quiet clarity:

“For me, figuration is the manifestation of the mortal. I place little importance on gender or physical characteristics. What interests me is the human psyche, and that is the abstraction I strive for. Therefore, it is very important for me not to specify a place or time in my work. I use this simplicity so as not to distract the viewer from the human experience, which has nothing to do with sexuality or identity.”