Gisele Amantea's work is best known for its interdisciplinarity and innovative use of a variety of materials, formats, and processes to explore questions related to gender, class, nostalgia, history, memory, and the relationship between private and public space. The media in which she works have ranged from sculpture, drawing, wallpaper, and textiles to video and bookworks. Her practice is strongly grounded in research, in the sense that her work is often made in response to, provoked by, or generated by specific contexts or places and depends, to some extent, on research undertaken in these locations. This includes making onsite observations and visiting official repositories of history such as archives, museums, and libraries as well as unofficial and vernacular collections such as those found in junk stores, popular media, and private residences.

In 2010 a major exhibition of Amantea's work, <em>Sweet Dreams, Hard Truths</em>, took place at the Musée d'art de Joliette. More recent installations have considered notions of ornament and decoration in relation to architectural space. These include <em>Democracy</em><em>, </em>a large-scale ephemeral site work for the <em>Oh, Canada</em>exhibition at MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts (2012); <em>Remember the Ladies</em> at Owens Art Gallery, Sackville, New Brunswick (2014), and <em>Anteroom</em><em> at </em>Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Calgary(2015, also for <em>Oh, Canada</em><em>)</em>; and <em>At the end of the visible spectrum</em> at the Galerie des arts visuels, Université Laval, Québec City (2014). In 2012 she installed <em>Untitled (Poodle)</em>,<em> </em>a work commissioned by The City of Vancouver Public Art Program and TransLink Corporation for Main Street in Vancouver.

Amantea's work is included in the permanent collections of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax; the Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor; the Glenbow Museum, Calgary; the Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina; the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Montréal; and numerous private collections. A native of Calgary, Gisele Amantea lives in Montréal where she taught in the Studio Arts program at Concordia University from 1995 to 2012.