The Center for Collaborative and International Arts (CENCIA) presented "Ghada Amer: The Breakthrough" coordinated by Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design and Welch Galleries. The multi-layered program featured a lecture by the New York-based artist Ghada Amer (part of the Welch Visiting Arts & Scholar Lecture Series) along with two related gallery projects: "Ghada Amer: The Breakthrough Resource Room," curated by GSU Associate Professor of Art History Kimberly Cleveland and Gallery Director Cynthia Farnell, and "The Economy of a Woman’s Touch: Contemporary Female Artists in Dialogue with Ghada Amer," curated by GSU Associate Professor of Art History Kimberly Cleveland and MFA Candidate Jack Michael.
Much of Amer’s production is informed by her personal history. Although Amer’s parents encouraged her academically and her family traveled internationally due to her father’s position as a diplomat, her position as an “outsider” in the West lead her to contemplate questions of cultural identity and hybridity. Amer subsequently applied a hybrid approach to some of her production by combining painting, which she considers a more masculine art form, with sewing and embroidery, which she considers more female forms of expression.
