The Art & Environment Prize is a new annual award organised by Maison Guerlain and Lee Ufan Arles, launched in 2023. The inaugural recipient of the prize is French artist, Djabril Boukhenaïssi, who is supported with a residency and exhibition — selected by Lee Ufan alongside a jury of experts from 381 entries.

Boukhenaïssi is a painter and engraver influenced by French and German philosophy and literature, (the artist also holds a degree in philosophy) whose delicate works draw on personal sketches of his past experiences. Boukhenaïssi spent eight weeks in the ancient city of Arles creating new works for the Art & Environment Prize exhibition at the Lee Ufans foundation — paintings and prints inspired by ‘nightfall’ and representations of the night, a recurrent theme in the artist’s work.

This oil and pastel work, Saint Blaise, is inspired by the church of the same name in Arles, a building with history dating back to the 12th century and possibly earlier, originally as a conventual chapel for the abbey of Saint Cesaire. With swathes of violence to represent the night, this evocative and hazy representation evokes the depths of a dream.
The artist’s first solo exhibition at Mariane Ibrahim gallery, Chicago, will take place in autumn next year.