Julie Mehretu, an artist inspired by creativity and making a change in people’s perception towards different issues in life, uses paintings as her artistic work. She makes her paintings on canvas and uses resources such as ink, pen, paint and pencil to come up with her legendary artwork. In her art, she conveys her expressions through conveying a compression and layering of place, time, historic references and space (Cube n.p.). Her art is renowned for the narratives created using images of wars, geographies, and cities. Her art not only describes the different social background of the world but also unravels her biography. Julie Mehrutu was born in Addis Ababa the capital city of Ethiopia in 1970 (Wesley n.p.). However, she spent most of her lifetime in New York where she lives and works in. Her artwork is legendary and much valued as evidenced by the many important exhibitions she has displayed her works. Not only has she done group exhibitions but also she has been involved in solo exhibitions in different museums. In 2015, she was awarded by the US State Department an award that only the legendary artists are awarded named the ” Nation Medal of Arts,” (Cube n.p.).
The works of Julie Mehretu entail layering, which involves the physical layering of marks, mediums, and images. The layering is also figurative concerning history, place, space and time. This artist draws her inspiration from the twenty-first-century cities. As such, the general view of the historical cities from an elevation gives her the inspiration which she transfers the energy using the ink, pencil, and paints. The compositions that she creates give an overall picture of the cities as seen from a distance but as one moves closer to the artwork, the image becomes shattered and creates a different narrative of what is happening in the painting. The influences of Mehretu range from various art historical references ranging from graffiti to Eastern calligraphy among other hence the awarding of the MacArthur fellowship in the year 2005 (“Julie Mehretu – 61 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy” n.p.). The Ethiopian artist operates with different abstract details in when creating her large paintings that help her create architectural perspective sense. One of her not striking piece of work named Stadia I gives a cluster of different abstract flows, which make a statement of how the history of a place can hide the details of people who were part of it. The art gives her personal illustration of the different dimensions of her artwork. The experimentation of Mehretu’s abstraction explores different artwork elements such as the origin of depth, shapes, motions and lines (Wesley n.p.). The only way to adequately understand Julie Mehretu’s artwork is through comprehending that the element of the artwork, which is space equates the movement and time as created through the visual impressions.
At a close look of one of Julie Mehretu art work named Stadia I, the three dimension perspective is developed by the artist to her audience. Different lines are drawn on the canvas cut diagonally, across the length and width with their shapes varying hence creating a tornado like impression. Her artistic work, which includes disorganized setup, curvy lines and stylistic elements that make her artwork captivating (“Julie Mehretu – 61 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy” n.p.). The different layering in her arts may be complicated for the visual perception but gives a chaos that develops a sense of movement and tension, which makes her artistic work unique. However, the artwork still maintains a visual abstraction from the combinations of the drawings, paintings and computerized layering (Cube n.p.).
Unlike most of the artists in her domain, Julie Mehretu uses a computer to make the drawings, which are then developed on the canvases. In reference to the artistic work Stadia I, the lines and dashes are vivid and bright on the canvas. The imagery depicted in her work refers to the different environments that come across her mind while working on the artwork. The images symbolize various elements of the environment she refers to. Her artistic works capture the different features of an environment such as the landscape and buildings in the form of symbols and columns (Wesley n.p.). She can capture the various elements of the environment through the city maps and the different perspectives that she sees the environment from which may be a cross section or aerial view of the cities or architectural structures (Cube n.p.). To create the abstract impressions, the paintings are made to be like tornados, which give the painting a fluid like outlook. The artwork of Mehretu is made up of imagery and symbolism. However, different artwork from architectural blueprints and the Japanese ink painting inspire the iconography and abstract patterns exhibited by most of her artworks.
In one of the past shows in 2014, Julie Mehrutu presented a battle drawing at Museum (“Julie Mehretu – 61 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy” n.p.). The drawing exhibited the condition of after battle, which can be interpreted as the sad state the community experiences after the war. The artwork of layering and figurative layering of history, place, time and space is exhibited in this artwork (Wesley n.p.). Upon a far glimpse, one is taken back to the past wars hence getting a mental image of how the battles looked like. However, upon a close look, one realizes the chaos in the form of the lines drawn across the canvas.
Different works by Mehretu can be discussed differently as per the interpretation of the audience. Wesley asserts that another audience may not see what one audience may see in Mehretu’s painting from a different geographic setting (n.p.). The artistic work Stadia I used as an example has a lot of command in terms of architectural designs. Different interpretations are used in the painting ranging from fire, water and explosions, which give different dimensions (“Julie Mehretu – 61 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy” n.p.). Through the different intangible movements seen in the painting, the audience is left with a feeling of disorder and tension.
Julie Mehretu draws her paintings from the past inspirations but bases her drawings on the future hence capturing a sense of history while at the same time maintaining the new impressions in her artwork. Her works focus on different environmental features, which mainly include architecture and space. The abstract impressions exhibited in her works portray the society that we line in today hence shows the gradual evolvement in artwork as differentiated from the precolonial artistic works. Most of Julie Mehretu works are formulated from chaos constructed from lines and different shadings as evidenced in Stadia I. This may be interpreted in a variety of ways but may be a typology of the world we live in today. Our world is filled with violent cases is disorderly as seen from different political cases hence may be a concept the artist uses to construct her paintings.
Works Cited
Cube, White. “Artist | White Cube.” Whitecube.Com, 2017, http://whitecube.com/artists/julie_mehretu/. Accessed 16 Feb. 2017.
“Julie Mehretu – 61 Artworks, Bio & Shows On Artsy”. Artsy.Net, 2017, https://www.artsy.net/artist/julie-mehretu. Accessed 16. Feb. 2017.
Wesley, Miller. “Meet the Season 5 Artist: Julie Mehretu.” Art21. 1 Oct. 2009. http://magazine.art21.org/2009/10/01/meet-the-season-5-artist-julie-mehretu/#.WKVr2Tj3P5r. Accessed 16 Feb. 2017.
