Artists' Talk: Ambreen Butt and Beili Liu

Ambreen Butt (left): Photo courtesy of the artist and WBUR / Beili Liu (right): Photo: Blue Way

Ambreen Butt (left): Photo courtesy of the artist and WBUR / Beili Liu (right): Portrait of the artist. Photo: Blue Way

In this presentation complementing the exhibition Site Lines: Artists Working in Texas, Asia Society Texas Center welcomes artists Ambreen Butt and Beili Liu, who will discuss their works in the Louisa Stude Sarofim Gallery. In this exhibition, Ambreen Butt connects the long history of miniature paintings to contemporary life through her adaptation of the main tenets of the tradition in which she trained at the National College of Arts in Lahore. She realizes these adaptations through media such as installations and collage. Beili Liu creates a form of meditative studio practice, allowing works to materialize from and refer to the various cultural systems that inform her experiences through repeated physical actions. Liu uses humble materials such as paper and cotton which are transformed by her hands, and function as a method of capturing time, and stressing its fleeting nature.

The exhibition runs through August 18, 2019, and is open Tuesday – Friday, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.

About the Artists

Ambreen Butt was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and received her BFA in traditional Indian and Persian miniature painting from the National College of Arts in Lahore. She moved to Boston in 1993 and attended Massachusetts College of Art and Design earning her MFA in painting in 1997. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions, both nationally and internationally. Institutions that have exhibited her work include the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Brooklyn Museum; USC Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, California; Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany; and the National Art Gallery in Islamabad, Pakistan.

She has been the recipient of awards including a Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, and a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario, Canada. In 1999, she was the first recipient of the James and Audrey Foster Prize from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, in addition to being an artist-in-residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum that same year. Her work is included in public and private collections including the Brooklyn Museum; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston; the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, among others.

Ambreen Butt lives and works in Southlake, Texas.

Beili Liu is a visual artist who has exhibited at venues such as the Hå Gamle Prestegard, Norway; Hua Gallery, London; Galerie an der Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Elisabeth de Brabant Art Center, Shanghai; and the Chinese Culture Center, San Francisco. Liu’s work has been showcased in exhibitions and performances at the Detroit Institute of Arts; Hangzhou Fiber Art Triennial; National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Southeast Texas; Kaunas Biennale, Lithuania; and others.

Beili Liu is a 2016 Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant recipient. She was designated the 2018 Texas State Artist in 3D medium by the Texas State Legislature and the Texas Commission on The Arts. Liu has been awarded artist residency fellowships from the Joan Mitchell Center, MASS MoCA, Facebook AIR, Fiskars AIR, Djerassi Foundation, and Fundación Valparaíso, Spain, among others.

Born in Jilin, China, Beili Liu now lives and works in Austin, Texas. Liu received her MFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and is a Professor of Art at the University of Texas at Austin.

This exhibition is organized by Asia Society Texas Center. Exhibitions at Asia Society Texas Center are presented by Wells Fargo. Major support comes from Chinhui Juhn and Eddie Allen, Nancy C. Allen, and Leslie and Brad Bucher, as well as The Brown Foundation, Inc., and the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance. Generous funding also provided by The Clayton Fund, Texas Commission on the Arts, Wortham Foundation, Inc., The Franci Neely Foundation, Olive Jenney, Nanako and Dale Tingleaf, and Ann Wales. Funding is also provided through contributions from the Exhibitions Patron Circle.

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