Creative Prompt: Julie Mehretu
I first encountered Julie’s work while teaching AP Art History, or at least that’s the first time that her style and name connected and cemented in my memory. Her piece, Stadia II, 2004, ink and acrylic on canvas, 108 x 144 inches, is part of the 250 images in the image set. The movement, depth, and bold colors immediately caught my attention. Kahn Academy does an excellent job of showing you the work, providing context, and telling you more about the process, so that I won’t do that here.
She does her work by projecting things like maps, graphs, and images and then creating layer upon layer. Her work is often large-scale, forcing the viewer to back up to take it all in and then the details, asking the viewer to walk up to and look closely.
To learn about and view some of her newer work, watch this Art21 Video.
Creative Prompt:
How would it change your process if you started projecting or tracing elements of an existing image, map, or graph? *NOTE: I’m not encouraging you to trace; that is your starting point, then layer, remove, and adjust. Also, explore only trace elements of the image. You might select three photos and only trace parts of each to form the base of a new image.