Moving Pictures

How does Julie Mehretu capture the swirling frenzy of modern life?

Julie Mehretu (b. 1970), Stadia II, 2004. Ink and acrylic on canvas. Collection Carnegie Museum of Art, Pennsylvania. Gift of Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn and Nicolas Rohatyn and A.W. Mellon Acquisition Endowment Fund. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. ©Julie Mehretu.

What shapes and symbols do you notice in Stadia II? What roles do they play in the composition?

Bryan Bedder/Getty Images

Julie Mehretu

Have you ever seen a painting that appears to move? Julie Mehretu’s (mehr-EH-too) monumental abstract paintings do just that, through spinning arrangements of lines, shapes, and color. 

Motion has been a driving force in Mehretu’s work and life. Born in Ethiopia in 1970 to an Ethiopian father and an American mother, Mehretu and her family immigrated to the United States in 1977. She’s since lived in Michigan, Rhode Island, California, New York, Germany, and Senegal. Her dynamic, collage-like paintings whirl with energy and excitement, and have made her a leading contemporary artist.

A World of Inspiration

For works like her 2004 ink and acrylic Stadia II, at top, Mehretu draws on a wide range of influences, including blueprints, maps, comics, Japanese and Chinese calligraphy, graffiti, and modernist art. “I pull from all of this material, project it, trace it, break it up, recontextualize it, layer one on the other, and envelop it into the DNA of the painting,” she says. The artist combines elements from these different sources of inspiration to explore themes like nationalism, migration, power, and globalization. 

To create seemingly three-dimensional scenes like the one in Stadia II, Mehretu’s process involves layering. She starts by projecting maps, blueprints, or photographs onto the canvas and then traces parts of them, preserving the tracings she wants to keep with a layer of transparent acrylic. She slowly adds more shapes and colors, repeating the acrylic layering process.

Julie Mehretu (on scaffold): Nathan Bajar/The New York Times/Redux Pictures.

Many of Mehretu’s works are extremely large. She uses a scissor lift, like the one shown here, to work on them.   

Building a Stadium

Does Stadia II remind you of a stadium, amphitheater, or similar public place? Mehretu uses leading lines in the foreground to draw your eye into the composition. She also adds curving lines and trapezoids that create contours, adding to the illusion that this is a three-dimensional space with depth. 

“I started collecting stadium plans, as many as I could, built or unbuilt,” Mehretu says. “I brought them all together in the studio and tried to build one mega-stadium out of all the drawings, tying and weaving them together.”

Easily recognizable shapes that read like flags, banners, seating, and lights appear throughout the composition. Mehretu also adds shapes and symbols that might remind you of corporate logos. Notice the colorful lines and dots throughout the work. How does their repetition create a sense of rhythm?

Abstract Experiences

Together, the lines and shapes Mehretu uses echo the swirling excitement of a stadium. But in the artist’s mind, the work is abstract. It doesn’t represent a specific stadium or event, and it is up to the viewer to interpret the scene. 

“Within abstraction there’s a lot that I can communicate that’s visceral and felt but that we don’t have language for,” the artist explains. “That’s my approach to making the paintings.” 

Which aspects of a sporting event, concert, or other public gathering does the painting above capture? How do Mehretu’s choices in color, shape, composition, and scale contribute to this message?

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