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GHADA AMER
(American, born Egypt, 1963)

The Big Red Rose—RFGA, 2004
Acrylic, embroidery, and gel medium on canvas
Purchased with funds from the New Art Collectors and the Alice Speed Stoll Accessions Trust 2004.9.1

An Egyptian-born artist, Ghada Amer uses a combination of erotic imagery and feminine symbols, rendered in painting and embroidery, to develop a dialogue about female identity. The Big Red Rose—RFGA is dominated by three large, painted roses over which Amer has embroidered images of a woman’s body and face. The embroidered image is fragmented, mirrored, and repeated many times across the canvas, creating a pattern that takes time to decipher. The rose, as part of a long emblematic tradition in secular and religious cultures, is recognized widely as a symbol of love, affection, and fertility. Formally, the painted and embroidered lines interlock in a dense and active abstraction, held in tension between the immediacy of brush marks and the time-consuming craft of embroidery. The images of roses and bodies keep popping out, however, like irrepressible representations of a celebratory eroticism, creating an unexpected duality that is teasing, humorous, and contemplative all at once.