Introduction
Ambreen Butt (born 1969) is a Boston-based Pakistani American artist best known for her drawings, paintings, prints, and collages.
Art
Butt's work is rooted in her bi-cultural identity and retains the intricate, decorative patterning that characterizes Indian and Persian miniature painting. She has updated the medium's painstaking technique with new materials, such as PET film, thread and collage.
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. [Conversely,] 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 techniques in her work. Her 2008 series Dirty Pretty combines the techniques of etching, silkscreen, and lithography, while earlier untitled series combine etching and aquatint.
Awards
In 1999, Butt received the inaugural James and Audrey Foster Prize from the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. That same year, Butt was artist-in-residence 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.
Selected exhibition history
- Solo exhibitions
- 2003 - I Must Utter What Comes to My Lips, Worcester, Massachusetts, Art Museum, March 1 - May 11
- Butt, Ambreen, 2003, I Must Utter What Comes to My Lips, exhibition catalogue, 1 March- 11 May, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA.