Julie Mehretu
Julie Mehretu was born in Ethiopia in 1970 and currently lives & works in New York City. She is an American contemporary visual artist, known for her multi-layered paintings of abstracted landscapes on a large scale. Influenced by architecture and urban environments she creates expressive grids, systems and maps using her own unique mark-making style. Mehretu has described her rich canvases as “story maps of no location”, seeing them as pictures into an imagined, rather than actual reality.
Workshop
We will create our own maps and abstract works of art inspired by Julie Mehretu.
1. Tape the newsprint or paper down on the floor
2. With your ruler and colored pencils begin to map your neighborhood
3. Think about your every day routes: your walk to school, the floors of the building you live in, your favorite park, where you best friend lives in the neighborhood etc.
4. Draw and layer those routes using your home as a starting point
5. Alternate from pencil to crayon and incorporate color, expressive marks, shapes and your own symbols to represent the places you’ve been
6. Expand from your neighborhood to places you’ve traveled (or want to travel) and where your extended family lives or is from around the world
7. Let your imagination and maps run wild!
Materials
Newsprint or Paper
Tape
Rulers
Crayons
Pencils
Colored Pencils
Follow Up
What does home mean to you?
How did you express your home and your self in your map? Can you describe your routes? Real and imaginary?
How did you use lines and colors to create your map?
Did you like drawing from real life and using your imagination? Which did you prefer?