'I WANTED to speak about women and I wanted to speak about painting. So I painted' with thread, a medium that is close to women,' explains super-successful, Egyptian-born, New York-based artist Ghada Amer, in town to do a residency with the Singapore Tyler Print Institute (STPI).

Initially, Ghada sewed images of women going about their daily life, but these images were 'boring', the technique and subject matter were too closely related. This resulted in the appropriation of explicit imagery from pornography, usually of women; the ends of the threads Ghada sewed these images with were left dangling, and secured to the surface with transparent gel medium; dripping paint reminiscent of Abstract Expressionism added yet another layer.

The mixture of 'low' art - sewing - with 'high' art - painting - was an inspirational move. The art world loved the richly textured and quietly subversive surfaces; critics commented that Ghada had reclaimed and feminised male Ab Ex painting by sewing over the paint.

In person, Ghada is forthright but not aggressive, impassioned but not in your face. Her mass of black hair is tied back, she wears a casual Egyptian print dress, and projects a rather different persona from the one you might associate with the erotic imagery. It's a nice contradiction, and it sits well with the subtle contradictions in her own work.

Of course, the totality of Ghada's works is more than its one layer of porn-derived imagery. As STPI director Irene Lee points out, 'being layered, (the erotic images) are not as overt when the work is complete. Yes, we were aware that she used such imagery as part of her work for the past 14 years or so, but that was not even a consideration in having her as a residency artist.'

Ghada, born in 1963, studied art at Nice, Boston and Paris and is now based in her Harlem studio. She says she doesn't often accept residency offers, but STPI tied in well with current explorations in her art, namely the collaborative work with her longtime friend, Iranian artist Reza Farkhondeh.

The collaboration started unexpectedly. 'Sometime in 2001 when I was travelling, Reza decided to work on my canvases without my permission. I was really mad at first but when I calmed down, I realised I could use the marks he had made. It pushed my work, and this process of both of us working different layers on to the canvas became like a game. A year ago we decided to collaborate formally' to create work that we both signed together.'

The multi-layered process of print making seems ideal for the collaborative style they have evolved. The interview takes place midway through their residency, and the studio is scattered with intriguing prints in different stages of finish. Their plan is to produce some 13 prints as sets of editions, as well as a series of one-off monotypes. Ghada gleefully enumerates using all the facilities available at STPI, from papermaking to silkscreen printing.

Ms Lee doesn't see a problem with the proposed Ghada-Reza exhibition at STPI early next year: 'Of course we would be sensitive to the viewer's point of view, and manage that part of the exhibition. We invited Ghada because she is a serious and highly respected contemporary artist, and has worked with prints before. This is the first time STPI is working with two artists - Ghada and Farkhondeh - in residence simultaneously. What is important to us is not so much the details but the works produced by the artists.'

Ghada is happy to call herself a feminist and to be told her work empowers women in many ways. So it's a doubly powerful statement that she collaborates with a man to create these works. 'It's like two lines of a subway that meet at a station,' offers Reza with a smile, 'and where you meet you can modify things.' Is Reza a feminist? It's a charged word but he is conscious and happy to work with Ghada in a creative area that is largely feminist; he says, 'I believe it is vital for men that women get liberated.'

Interestingly, the work may be provocative, but the response that Ghada wants is for the work to be thought beautiful. She says: 'You say a lot with beauty, and I believe that art's intention is beauty. Beauty doesn't mean decorative - though I don't have a problem with that either, unlike the Western art world - but something that produces an emotional response in the viewer.'

Ghada's works have done well in the market. Drawings and paintings that sold for US$1,200 and US$100 in the early 1990s, now sell in a mind-boggling range of US$80,000 to US$250,000, and US$10,000 to US$36,000 respectively. Besides, Ghada is represented by Larry Gagosian, one of the top dealers of the art world.

While she has no problem with the art market, she doesn't let it dictate her art either. Each time she explored new territory in her art - the sculptures, the installations, the gardens and now the collaborative work with Reza - she had to fight with her art dealers to do it. But 'if you keep repeating what you are expected' to do with your art, then you lose your soul.'

This is a particularly explorative year for Ghada, with projects such as creating her first permanent garden in Rennes, France; a mini retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome; an installation show in Milan that explores the definition of the word 'terrorist' in English and Arabic, that will include a collaborative work with Reza, Indigestible Dessert, which has her chopping up a giant cake made in the likeness of US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The work is political, and seemingly a radical departure from the feminist work she has been associated with. 'I respond to things that are there, that I can feel,' she responds. 'In the 80s I was concerned with conservatism and women's rights; today it is terrorism. It's like inspiration, an artist is like a channel.'