"Throughout her career her work has unfolded as a sustained effort to reconsider the way women appear in art and the way painting might foreground their presence. If the medium has historically been tied to mastery and a closed set of conventions, Amer treats it as a space that can be unraveled. Rather than reject painting, she stretches its borders through thread, sculpture and language, allowing it to evolve into a more porous and responsive form."
"Amer works not on canvas but on unfolded cardboard boxes gathered from the street. Their surface carries the trace of use, showing faint folds, seams and markings beneath the drawing. Across these textured planes, Amer renders female figures in ink with a line that is both bold and firm. The ink moves across the corrugation with easy gravity, settling into the grain and catching lightly in the ridges. The figures hold to the surface with a serene presence, neither posed nor performative."
"Cardboard is a material of transit, yet here it becomes a place of arrival. Once used to contain and protect, it now offers a ground that holds presence openly. Any echo of the folding screen, once used to hide the female body, is gently reversed. The box has been opened fully and without ceremony. The women remain steady and self-possessed in their own company."
Ghada Amer continually reimagines painting to foreground women's presence and to challenge conventions tied to mastery. The practice expands the medium through thread, sculpture, language and found surfaces, seeking porous and responsive forms. Recent works use unfolded cardboard boxes gathered from the street, their surfaces bearing traces of use and faint folds that inform the drawing. Ink-rendered female figures appear with calm, self-possessed presence, settling into corrugation and ridges. Cardboard shifts from transit material to a receptive ground, reversing concealment and offering an open site to recognize and honor the complexity of women’s lives.
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