Ambreen Butt (born 1969) is a

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

-based

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

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, p ...

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

collage Collage (, from the , "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 assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

s, and has been recognized for her labor intensive, painted

self-portraits Self-portraits are Portrait painting, portraits artists make of themselves. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, the practice of self-portraiture only gaining momentum in the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century ...

that portray feminist and political ideas through traditional Persian art. She now resides in

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

, TX.

Education

Butt obtained her Bachelor’s of Fine Art in traditional Indian and Persian miniature painting from the

National College of Arts The National College of Arts (colloquially known as NCA) is a public university located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Overview The National College of Arts – Federally Chartered Institute, is the oldest art school in Pakistan and the second ...

Lahore Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...

. 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 Massachusetts College of Art and Design, branded as MassArt, is a public college of visual and applied art in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1873, it is one of the nation's oldest art schools, and the only publicly funded independent art sch ...

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''. The ...

. 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 A suicide attack (also known by a wide variety of other names, see below) is a deliberate attack in which the perpetrators knowingly sacrifice their own lives as part of the attack. These attacks are a form of murder–suicide that is ofte ...

in Butt's hometown of Lahore. She has updated the medium's painstaking technique with new materials, such as

PET film BoPET (biaxially oriented polyethylene terephthalate) is a polyester film made from stretched polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and is used for its high tensile strength, chemical stability, dimensional stability, transparency reflectivity, and ...

, 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 work of art, 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 proces ...

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

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other type ...

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 in a "flood stroke" ...

, and

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, 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 ...

, while earlier untitled series combine etching and

aquatint Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching that produces areas of tone rather than lines. For this reason it has mostly been used in conjunction with etching, to give both lines and shaded tone. It has also been used ...

. 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 (; 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 Muzaffargarh Distr ...

, a woman gang-raped at the order of her local council in an act of honor revenge. The

U.S. State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs ...

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. The museum was founded as the Boston Museum of Modern Art in 1936. Since then it has gone through multiple name chang ...

. That same year, Butt was

artist-in-residence Artist-in-residence (also Writer-in-residence), or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs that involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs that pr ...

at the

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It was found ...

, 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 McColl may refer to: * McColl, South Carolina * McColl Center for Art + Innovation, an artist residency and contemporary art space in Charlotte, North Carolina. * McColl (surname) * McColl (superfund site), a US Environmental Protection Agency ...

in Charlotte, NC. She has also been the recipient of the Brother Thomas Fellowship from the

Boston Foundation Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and financial center of New England, a region of the Northeastern United States. It has an area of and ...

, Maud Morgan Prize from the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...

, 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,

Worcester Art Museum The Worcester Art Museum houses over 38,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day and representing cultures from all over the world. The museum opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Its holdings include Roman mosaics, Europe ...

, 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 The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since open ...

, 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 women painters 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