This is, for me, a very Matissean-like painting before Matisse.
My name is Ghada Amer and I'm an artist.
I am born in Egypt, but I grew up in France and I became American, but still people—in America at least—they always like to refer to me as either Muslim or Egyptian. It has bothered me so much because it's to reject you, in a way. This is exactly why I chose the Islamic art because the people want to put me in this box, so I have to go and see. It's like an identity quest, in a way.
This piece was very striking for me because I like this woman in the center. The guy is like kneeling towards her, paying respect. She is powerful. She has lust, there's a certain kind of lust in her; I like that. And she is smiling and she is giving him something and he is giving her something. It's about love. It's about man and woman encounter where they don't have any veils. And the ladies are happy: there are other ladies, they're bringing more wine. Outside in the garden, everywhere there is flowers. And I like as well how they are drawn with the outlines, like these patterns. It's kind of a little bit maybe naïve, it's like a children's drawing with all of the naïveté but all of the happiness. This is, for me, a very Matissean-like painting before Matisse. So it is, in this sense, contemporary for me.
I like the fact that it was tiles: low art versus high art, which is like the West versus the East. This would never pass as a painting in the western world; this is ceramic, so it has a secondary degree.
Historically, the medium of painting has been invented by men: this is what they want us to believe. That's why the medium is a very important question in my work. The medium that would differentiate you, like "oh, are you a low artist? Are you a high artist?" So this has always been interesting for me to see how people view material or medium. Why is a medium more important than another?
I don't like art that is too much intellect. I like it to speak to my heart, my reason. To be happy to go out and to live in peace and to talk to strangers... It's about an exchange. Because this is how I feel as a woman struggling with my Muslim identity, with things that were not allowed in my country, for example. Really, this is what I identify, in a way. She is out and she's free. She is the queen.
