Julie Mehretu

Julie Mehretu was born in Ethiopia and raised in michigan. Her works of art depict cities, urben environments, and other strucutres. She takes the structures or environments and dipicts them as abstract works of art that are fluid instead of ridged and gridded. She uses Acrylic paint, ink, and pencil as her mediums. Acrylic paint enables her to make layers of paint and creates texture in her art because it is not re-hydratable and once it has dried it can be re painted over again with out making the colors run together, and builds on top of itself creating texture. This helps her create a feeling that a city is more then just one layer and is made up of multiple things such as people. The layers she makes with the paint allow her to illustrate the many different things that make up a city or environment. (Ex: The Dense population) Acrylic paint is also very useful in mix media which Mehretu takes advantage of when she uses ink and pencil as her other mediums of choice. Once acrylic paint is dry it allows the artist to draw over it with different mediums such as the ink and pencil Mehretu uses in her paintings. Being able to use different mediums on top of the acrylic paint enables Mehretu to be able to add line to her paintings and to make movement in her painting that bring the movement of the city to life in her paintings with her lines drawn with ink and paint. Also, she uses ink and pencils to depict different aspects of the envirnoment she is trying to encompass. She captures the speed of the city with all her crazy lines and the way she makes movement in her paintings with the lines she draws out of ink and pencil. With the mediums she uses she can create movement and emotions in her art work. Her abstrat art allows people to look at every day places like cities in a way we never have before.