Julie Mehretu’s works spring from an interest in systems and serve as a direct response to political issues such as war, diaspora and social protest.
“She creates an expression that fuses chaos and order in a structured pattern with loose, abstract gestures. She describes her works as ‘a complex drawn language of marks that behave, battle, migrate and civilize’.
“I am looking for that space where you can’t have that singular, particular experience. It’s about what is undefined, unstable – and for me, that’s important politically.”
Julie Mehretu
Painting is not the only medium through which colour and emotion take shape—drawing, too, serves as a form of free expression, driven by instinct and intuition. As contemporary artist Julie Mehretu describes, “It opened up a way for me to create work.” Her pieces, created with ink and technical pens—tools traditionally used for map-making and architectural drafting—channel incendiary energies that mirror the complexities of urban life.
Much like Sarah Sze, whose work explores the relationship between fragmented elements in space, Mehretu constructs layered compositions that feel both chaotic and systematic. Her drawings have been described as “aerial maps of cities” and “story maps of no location,” reflecting her conceptual approach to mark-making. Through this process of expansion, layering, and movement, she visualizes the abstract forces of motion that shape contemporary urban experience.
For Mehretu, this dynamic approach to drawing becomes a metaphor for the shifting meta-structures that order our civilizations, prompting deeper reflection on their impact on the societies within them. By translating these unseen systems into energetic, gestural forms, she captures the tension between control and unpredictability—offering a striking commentary on the landscapes we navigate every day.