Zolamian borrows references from both Eastern and Western art history – Medieval miniatures, Persian and Armenian, the primitive Flemish, Henri Rousseau, Cézanne… – and gathers and recomposes them according to the moment, thus disintegrating the notion of affiliation and belonging to a community, bringing to the surface an imaginary territory where an iconography based on the attempt of integration appears and where relationships – sometimes discordant – are established. Between human beings and nature, memories of the individual and the collective, between tradition, separation and upheaval, between site, temporality and culture.
Marie Zolamian (n. 1975, Beirut) lives and works in Liège (Belgium). She studied visual arts at the Royal Academy of Liège and at La Cambre in Brussels. Recent exhibitions include Some movements in the tree of life, UZ Jette, Bruselas, Belgium (2023), Untitled, Galerie Nadja Vilenne, Liège, Belgium (2019); Bienvenue, Mu.ZEE, Ostende, Belgium (2018); Paroles à Boire, Musée le Carroi, Chinon, France (2017); The Mayor of Veurne, EMERGENT, Veurne, Belgium (2015); Listen Your Eyes, Dakar Biennial of Contemporary Art, Dakar, Senegal (2014).
She has participated in group exhibitions such as Tageldimde/Middlegate 2023 Cultuurcentrum, Werft, Geel, Be (2023); Regenerate, Wiels, Brussels, Belgium, (2021), Grandchildren, Depo, Istambul, Turkey (2015), Qalandiya International, Birzeit & Abwein, Palestina (2012), Contemporary Art Biennal 2009, Parallel events, Istambul, Turkey (2009) among many others.
Zolamian has several permanent installations in public spaces and institutions, most notably Welkom – Bienvenue – Welcome – Willkommen at KMSKA in Antwerp, Belgium (2022), a 76 m2 mosaic of 600,000 stones at the entrance to the museum, the largest mosaic in Belgium to date.
Selected solo exhibitions
Selected group exhibitions
2023