Ghada Amer

The gender politics of abstraction: embroidered paintings and more from Ghada Amer

New York–based painter and embroiderer Ghada Amer (born 1963) was raised in Cairo, Egypt, and later educated in Nice and Paris, France. Her experiences with sexism in both locations served as the impetus for her to forge new ground in a range of mediums, from painting and sculpture to ceramics and earthworks. With a background in abstract painting, Amer eventually turned to embroidery as a strategy for infiltrating the male space of painting with a material traditionally associated with women. Her work is frequently based on the images of female figures found in magazines, through which she explores the constructions of gender, sexuality and eroticism. Her embroidery is intentionally loose, with threads dangling from the canvas, provoking a pictorial effect not unlike Pollock’s splattered paint. More recent works introduce a verbal element, with quotations and aphorisms. This volume reproduces these pieces along with a selection of works from across her career.