“I decided to use embroidery in my work after realizing that the language of painting is dominated by men.” – Ghada Amer
Ghada Amer (b. 1963) is an Egyptian-American contemporary artist who uses embroidery in her work. Amer’s work deals with issues of gender and sexuality, and she is known for highly layered embroidered images of women’s bodies often referenced from pornographic imagery.
Amer emigrated from Egypt to France at the age of 11 and currently lives and works between New York and Paris. In 1987, she attended a semester abroad program with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and she learned about important women artists who were using different formal languages. After returning to France, Amer developed her own approach to painting, using embroidery and gel on canvas as her medium and creating her own “feminine language of painting.” (from an interview with Maura Reilly in 2010)
"Many of Amer's paintings make art historical references in subversive and humorous ways. White Girls and White-RFGA subtly makes racial commentary, critiquing whiteness as a convention while addressing Robert Ryman. Landscape with Black Mountains-RFGA conflates the female form as a pastoral setting.[SW1] ” (from the publisher’s note: Cheim &Read, 2018)
