Born 1963, Cairo, Egypt
Lives and works in New York, USA

By Isabella Ellaheh Hughes
Working in a variety of mediums that have more recently included ceramics, Ghada Amer is particularly known for her detailed, acrylic, hand-embroidered multimedia works on canvas. Amer uses thread and needles, traditionally feminised handicraft mediums, to address sexuality and women’s issues and offers biting commentary on the representation of women in mass media and popular culture.In Snow White without the Dwarves, Amer’s technique of stitching, knotting and gluing loose threads onto the surface of the canvas results in a work which dually suggests embroidery and painterly effects. In one corner and fairly easy to pick out is Disney’s characterisation of Snow White. More subversively hidden amidst the tangles of thread are a variety of other female figures in suggestive poses, which add to the piece a darker, erotic undertone. Born in Cairo, Ghada Amer moved to France with her parents in 1974. She studied at Ecole des Beaux Arts in Nice and the Institut des Hautes Études en Arts Plastiques in Paris, eventually emigrating to the US, where she studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.