Ambreen Butt عبرین بٹ

Repost from @gallerywendinorris • Book Announcement | PRE-ORDER NOW "What Comes to My Lips," the first monograph on the artist @ambreen.butt , is now available for pre-order on our website. Trained in the thousand-year tradition of Indo-Persian miniature painting and contemporary Western art and theory, Butt’s studio practice circumvents history, tradition and contemporaneity creating a multifaceted project that explores civil liberties and rights, mutual responsibilities and complex geopolitical forces. Illuminated with images of the artist’s paintings, collaged works on paper and large-scale installations from the past three decades, this in-depth book features essays by curator/writer Sara Raza and artist/critic Quddus Mirza. Raza examines Butt’s practice through the thematic lens of the sciences of Islam’s Golden Age (7th–14th century), proposing a bridge that connects art, history and cosmology. In his essay, Mirza places the conventions of the artist’s work in relation to longer historical narratives and traditional gendered roles across the spectrums of time and locality. Link in bio to pre-order for all US shipping. Ships fall 2023. #ambreenbutt #whatcomestomylips @blackdogpress @punkorientalism @quddusmirza

In light of the recent mandate banning words like “women” and “female” from discourse, themes of my work ‘Shoot’ from the series ‘Farewell’ 2002 take on a new urgency: Here, my heroine stands poised with a rifle aimed at a large sphere constructed from the shredded bits of old journals. These bits are reminiscent of an archival history that seeks to define, contain, and confine her. While her feet are tied, she prepares to fire; it is a moment that suspends between past and future, between the imposed narratives and self-determination. Looking at this image almost a quarter of a century after its conception, on this Women’s Day, I am thinking about what Kishwar Naheed Aapa once said, “Speech is Urgent when listening is a crime.” I remind myself that acknowledging women’s contributions throughout history is not an act of nostalgia but rather a political stance. Today, this image is more than a personal liberation; it is a confrontation and an act of resistance against the forces that continue to dictate and erase her identity and autonomy. When words are banned, art must stand in their place to bear witness. Happy International Women’s Day to all my comrades. 💚 #internationalwomensday #art #drawing #painting #women #female * ‘Shoot’ from the series Farewell. 15X17 inches. 2002. Water colors, text, collage and stitching on layers of Mylar

🌹 They will tell you so many things. If you listen to them, they’ll fill you like an empty vessel with the poison of their expectations. And before you know it, you’ll be carrying the burden on your shoulders that is not yours in the first place. And If you summon courage, and refuse to submit to their ideologies, they’ll call you names or patronize you. But you will fight, never to stop again. With a pen, to give them your piece of mind. With a paint brush, to show them your true colors. You will rise, with the burden on your back, of your lonely but, un-corrupted, un-compromised self. Image: From the series, “I need a hero” Circa 2005 #ambreenbutt #womenartists #5womenartists #painting #worksonpaper #drawing #painting #poem #artandpoetry #womensday

Last chance | Watch the different stages of the creation of Ambreen Butt’s (@ambreen.butt ) work “Rupture” (2026), currently on view at Gallery Wendi Norris. As its title suggests, the artist physically severed the work’s surface in multiple places. In the spaces she ruptured, Butt slotted the cutout of an etching of a protesting woman who emerges out of the abstracted, rippling plane of a keffiyeh. Butt inserted the actual fabric of a keffiyeh through these ruptures, as an act of repair and restoration. This work is on view for one day more in “Ambreen Butt: I Bear Witness,” which closes Saturday, May 9. Ambreen Butt, “Rupture,” 2026. Watercolors, white gouache, pencil, collage, and fabric on tea-stained paper, 30 x 22 inches / 76.2 x 55.88 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco.

Pigment extracted from beetroot and marigold is pressed into the surface through staining and eco-printing. The image emerges from this bruised and stained surface through repeated puncture and hand-stitch, each incision marking rupture, while the thread holds the form together. Through this process, the surface absorbs impact and retains its trace. As the figure is subjected to the command to silence, the material resists in concealing what has occurred. The mark remains as evidence of speech under threat. Silence! from I Bear Witness is on view at @gallerywendinorris until May 9th. 🎞️ @Eram.in.wonderland #ambreenbutt #gallerywendinorris #ibearwitness

We are thrilled that María Magdalena Campos-Pons (@maria_magdalena_campos_pons ) and Ambreen Butt (@ambreen.butt ) are presenting work this week across Venice in exhibitions in and around the Biennale. Campos-Pons is among the 111 participants in “In Minor Keys,” the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (@labiennale ), on view May 9 – November 22, 2026. With collaborator Kamaal Malak, she presents a new installation in the Central Pavilion at the Giardini della Biennale, a work rooted in one of the exhibition’s guiding threads: the creole garden and courtyard as sites of imaginative freedom and collective nourishment. In the days surrounding the Biennale’s opening, Campos-Pons brings her practice into live performance across the Giardini and Arsenale: — Wednesday, May 6, 5pm: Teatro Tese dei Soppalchi, Arsenale — Thursday, May 7, 3pm: “Poetry Caravan” procession, Giardini della Biennale, in honor of the late curator Koyo Kouoh — Saturday, May 9, 4pm: Teatro Tese dei Soppalchi, Arsenale Also on view May 10–July 10, 2026 is “Resonance: Vanderbilt University in Venice” at Fondazione Giorgio e Armanda Marchesani, Dorsoduro. Initiated by Campos-Pons and Malak through the Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice (@eadj.program ) and presented in collaboration with @vanderbiltu , “Resonance” is a palazzo-based laboratory of ideas and artistic practice in the form of exhibitions and public programs curated by Grace Aneiza Ali (@grace_aneiza_ali ) and Selene Wendt. Ambreen Butt presents work alongside Carrie Mae Weems (@carriemaeweems ), Deborah Willis (@debwillisphoto ), and dozens of other artists. The program opens Sunday, May 10 with “A Gathering in the Key of Resonance,” featuring a formal introduction and sonic intervention by Campos-Pons and Malak, followed by conversations with Siddhartha Mitter (@siddharthamitter ), Aruna D’Souza (@invisible.flaneuse ), and others throughout the day. Images: Portrait of María Magdalena Campos-Pons and Kamaal Malak by John Russell/Vanderbilt University. Portrait of Ambreen Butt by Kevin Todora.

On view | “Awladi (My Children)” (2026) by Ambreen Butt Ambreen Butt (@ambreen.butt ) places a maternal figure at the center of the frame where she cradles walking irises, a flower that the artist grows in her own garden. The figure is framed within an ornamental border drawn from Indo-Persian manuscript traditions that Butt was classically trained in. The plant she holds spills beyond the frame’s edges, pressing the figure’s presence into our space. The words “Awladi” and its English translation, “My Children,” permeate the entire work, repeating in small script across the ornamental field around the frame, and rising into three-dimensional letters formed from fabric pushed through cuts in the surface—fraying at the edges, their loose threads cascading downward like roots, or like grief that cannot be contained. Butt physically cuts open the work’s surface, a visceral echo of the wounds that war and displacement leave behind. She then repairs those cuts with the same fabric. Gold embellishments and vegetal ornament coexist with raw, downward stains, resulting in an image that casts the maternal figure as an emblem of endurance. “Ambreen Butt: I Bear Witness” 🗓️ On view at Gallery Wendi Norris through Saturday, May 9 Ambreen Butt, “Awladi (My Children)” (and details), 2026. Fabric, collage, gold leaf, vegetable dyes, watercolors, and gouache on tea-stained paper, 43.5 x 30.5 inches / 110.49 x 77.47 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco.

This Earth Day, we take a closer look at how Ambreen Butt (@ambreen.butt ) deploys the land as a collaborator in her new series, “I Bear Witness,” currently on view at Gallery Wendi Norris. In this series, the land embodies the ultimate manifestation of the maternal—something that sustains, witnesses, and holds. Throughout, Butt builds her surfaces from vegetable dyes, tea-staining, and eco-printing, the materials layered mark by mark. Earth-derived pigments suffuse the works, creating a direct connection between the painted surface and the earth from which these pigments are drawn. Across multiple works, walking irises—cultivated from Butt’s own garden —appear as emblems of ephemerality and resilience. Each bloom opens for a single day. The plant propagates by bending toward the ground and taking root wherever it lands, walking onward. “Ambreen Butt: I Bear Witness” 🗓️ On view through Saturday, May 9 Details of Ambreen Butt “Speak!” (2026), “Silence!” (2026), “Awladna (Our Children)” (2026), “Holding” (2026), “Substitution” (2026). #EarthDay

On view at EXPO CHICAGO, Booth 404 | “Pages of Deception” (2012) by Ambreen Butt Standing six feet tall, “Pages of Deception” (2012) takes the form of a muraqqa, a traditional Islamic album of miniature paintings and calligraphy. The work depicts something far from sacred though: the trial transcript of Tarek Mehanna, whose 2012 federal case ignited fierce debate over the boundaries between free speech and national security. Over the course of a year, Butt tore and collaged the legal documents by hand, situating the prosecution on one panel and the defense on the other. The resulting diptych resembles a devotional manuscript—meticulous, layered, and rich with the weight of language—yet its content is the contested language of the American courtroom. Tea-stained paper lends the surface an archival warmth, as though the words have already passed into history, even as the questions they raise remain unresolved. Butt collapses the distance between traditions of sacred text and the machinery of the state. The painstaking physicality of the work—each fragment torn, placed, and adhered—transforms legal language into something felt as much as read. “Pages of Deception” served as the centerpiece of Butt’s solo exhibition “Mark My Words” (2018–19) at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (@womeninthearts ). EXPO CHICAGO (@EXPOCHICAGO ) Booth 404 Navy Pier, Chicago, IL Through April 12, 2026 Ambreen Butt, “Pages of Deception” (and details), 2012. Torn and collaged text on tea stained paper, 78 x 108 inches overall /198.12 x 274.32 cm (framed). Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco.

Now Open | EXPO CHICAGO | Booth 404 Gallery Wendi Norris is proud to present a selection of career-defining works by María Magdalena Campos-Pons (@maria_magdalena_campos_pons ), Ambreen Butt (@ambreen.butt ), and Chitra Ganesh (@chitraganeshbkny ) for our exhibition in EXPO CHICAGO’s expanded Galleries section, “Embodiment.” Curated by Dr. Louise Bernard (@louisebernard_of ), Director of the Obama Presidential Center Museum, this section features works inspired by the architecture and commissioned artists of the Obama Presidential Center (@obamafoundation ) ahead of its anticipated opening in June 2026. 🔗 See the link bio to learn more about our presentation. EXPO CHICAGO Booth 404 Navy Pier, Chicago, IL VIP Preview Thursday, April 9, 12 – 8 pm Public Days Friday, April 10, 11 am – 7 pm Saturday, April 11, 11 am – 7 pm Sunday, April 12, 11 am – 6 pm Install photography of Gallery Wendi Norris at EXPO CHICAGO 2026, Booth 404, by Evan Jenkins. Images courtesy of the artists and Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco. @the_adaa @expochicago #expochicago

Max Blue on the art of Ambreen Butt maxblue.substack.com Blue Notes Link bio @maxblueofficial @ambreen.butt @gallerywendinorris

Thank you Max Blue (@MaxBlueOfficial ) for the thoughtful and incisive review of “Ambreen Butt: I Bear Witness.” “The strength of Butt’s work is not in passivity, but in showing how the act of witnessing can become an interrogation and negotiation of our collective circumstances and those beyond our reach. It might not constitute an intervention, but it is an inspiration and invocation — one that is impossible to ignore.” 🔗 Read the full review in the link in bio.