Seven Acts of Mercy, 2004, ink and acrylic on canvas, 9 1/2×21’.
"Even though I collect and work with images in the studio they don’t enter the work directly. Instead I’m trying to create my own language. It’s the reason I use the language of European abstraction in my work. I am interested in those ideas because I grew up looking at that type of work, but also not taking any of it at face value. It is as big a part of me as Chinese calligraphy or Ethiopian illuminated manuscripts. The more I understand any kind of work the more I see myself conceptually borrowing from it. Going to the Met and seeing particular paintings over and over inevitably becomes a part of my language. Abstraction in that way allows for all those various places to find expression."
-- Julie Mehretu, speaking in a 2005 interview with BOMB Magazine
Julie Mehretu is an Ethiopian-born artist who grew up in Michigan and now lives in New York City. Widely exhibited, she won a MacArthur 'genius' grant the same year that she became known for fighting for the right of artists to have a say in where their work goes, paycheck bedamned. Mehretu studied at Kalamazoo College and the Rhode Island School of Design. Find her at the Marian Goodman Gallery, on Art21, in The New Yorker, and among the poetry of Sappho.
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