Israeli contemporary artist Michal Rovner was announced on Monday the winner of the Israel Prize in the field of plastic arts, Education Minister Yoav Kisch announced.
Rovner's art presents a unique and groundbreaking language of photography, video art and architectural installation, the selection committee said.
One of her pieces, titled "1st place", is a structure made of the stones of destroyed Palestinian houses, and then constructed by Jews and Palestinians. It was sold in 2006 as the most expensive piece ever sold by an Israeli artist.
She is internationally acclaimed and had been exhibited in major museums including the MoMA, and the Whitney Museum in New York as well as the Louvre in Paris.
The subject of the Holocaust is a recurring theme in her works, many of which were exhibited in the Yad Vashem Museum, as well as in the Museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
"Michal Rovner is one of the leading Israeli artists," said the Israeli Prize Committee. "Her artistic work is unique in its original and groundbreaking language in the field of photography, video, and architecture. Rovner has received significant recognition and success in Israel and around the world by important museums and art-loving audiences."
The committee also noted that "Michal's work is universal, in the deepest sense of the word, it touches everyone, everywhere, at the same time."