Ambreen Butt (born 1969) is a

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

-based

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

artist best known for her drawings, paintings, prints, and

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

s, and has been recognized for her labor intensive, painted self-portraits that portray feminist and political ideas through traditional Persian art. She now resides in Dallas, TX.

Education

Butt obtained her Bachelor’s of Fine Art in traditional Indian and Persian miniature painting from the National College of Arts in Lahore. She later moved to Boston in 1993 and in 1997 she received her Master’s of Fine Arts in Painting from Massachusetts College of Art (now Massachusetts College of Art and Design).

Art

Butt's work is rooted in her bi-cultural identity and retains the intricate, decorative patterning that characterizes Indian and

Persian miniature painting A Persian miniature ( Persian: نگارگری ایرانی ''negârgari Irâni'') is a small Persian painting on paper, whether a book illustration or a separate work of art intended to be kept in an album of such works called a ''muraqqa''. Th ...

. One such work, ''I Am My Lost Diamond (2011),'' created for her ''Realms of Intimacy'' exhibition at th
Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center
combined more than 20,000 sculpted fingers and toes cast in resin to create an image of fireworks or flower blossoms when viewed at a distance. The work was influenced by a friend's experience narrowly escaping from a suicide bombing in Butt's hometown of Lahore. She has updated the medium's painstaking technique with new materials, such as PET film, thread and

. Ambreen Butt's work, her miniature paintings, more specifically, are made to exemplify social issues. In particular, Butt's work addresses gender roles, cultural differences, the notion of freedom, and the meaning of human rights. This is achieved by blending imagery from newspapers and historical depictions on her canvases. One such social issue, as mentioned, is the differences between the depiction of males and females. In an interview, Butt explains this observation; “I was particularly struck by the representation of women in miniature art. They were often depicted as small seductive creatures. onversely,The male icons ..had a more god-like representation." “I was more concerned with the woman herself, rather than her body.” Butt has also employed

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...

techniques in her work. Her 2008 series ''Dirty Pretty'' combines the techniques of etching,

silkscreen Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh ...

, and

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

, while earlier untitled series combine etching and aquatint. More recently, Butt's work has been featured on the exterior of the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum. The enlarged piece is a celebration of the heroism of

Mukhtar Mai Mukhtaran Bibi ( ur, ; born Kristof, N & Wudunn, S, (2009), "Half The Sky", Virago), now known as Mukhtār Mā'ī, is a Pakistani human rights activist from the village of Meerwala, located in the rural ''tehsil'' of Jatoi in the Muzaffargar ...

, a woman gang-raped at the order of her local council in an act of honor revenge. The U.S. State Department also commissioned a large-scale piece that now hangs in the U.S. embassy in Islamabad.

Awards

In 1999, Butt received the inaugural James and Audrey Foster Prize from the

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is an art museum and exhibition space located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America. The museum was founded as the Boston Museum of Modern Art in 1936. Since then it has gone through multiple na ...

. That same year, Butt was

artist-in-residence Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space a ...

at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where she was the first artist in the program to open her studio to the public and engage directly with visitors. She was a 2002 Artist-in-Residence at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation in Charlotte, NC. She has also been the recipient of the Brother Thomas Fellowship from the Boston Foundation, Maud Morgan Prize from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and a

Joan Mitchell Foundation Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

grant. In 2009, she received an Artadia Award.

Selected exhibition history

; Solo exhibitions * 2003 - ''I Must Utter What Comes to My Lips'', Worcester, Massachusetts, Art Museum, March 1 - May 11 *2005 - ''I Need A Hero,'' Kustera Tilton Gallery, New York, June 23 - July 29, 2005 *2019 - ''Mark My Words,'' National Museum for Women in the Arts, December 7, 2018 - April 14, 2019Butt, Ambreen, ''Mark My Words,'' exhibition pamphlet, 7 December 2018- 14 April 2019, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. *

References

External links

Ambreen Butt on Art New England

* ttp://www.uvm.edu/~fleming/index.php?category=exhibitions&page=ambreen Ambreen Butt: I need a hero, Fleming Museum of Art
A dreamlike glimpse of the cosmic and mundane
{{DEFAULTSORT:Butt, Ambreen 1969 births Living people Pakistani emigrants to the United States Pakistani women artists Pakistani contemporary artists American contemporary artists National College of Arts alumni Massachusetts College of Art and Design alumni American women printmakers Pakistani people of Kashmiri descent 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists