Turner Prize 1995 artists: Mona Hatoum

Hatoum was born in Beirut, to a Palestinian family. She attended Beirut University College from 1970 to 1972. She came to Britain as a student in the mid-1970s, settling in London in 1975 when civil war in the Lebanon made her return home impossible.

Mona Hatoum Performance Still 1985–95

Mona Hatoum
Performance Still 1985–95
Tate
© Mona Hatoum​

Hatoum’s pieces are concerned with confrontational themes such as violence, oppression and voyeurism, often in reference to the human body. Conflict arises from the juxtaposition of opposites such as beauty and horror, desire and revulsion. Until 1988 Hatoum worked mainly with video and performance. Since 1989 she has concentrated on making installations, the first group of which were exhibited in 1992 at the Chapter Gallery, Cardiff. She has created a number of works using metal grids which allude to physical violence and imprisonment, notably Light Sentence (1992). She has also explored these themes in a number of smaller sculptures based on items of furniture, such as Incommunicado.

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