Among the Multitude VI, 2020-22

Mixed media on canvas
© Julie Mehretu; courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. Photo by Tom Powel Imaging.

Drawing on diverse references—literature, architecture, activism, music, calligraphy, and art history—Julie Mehretu’s artistic practice addresses pressing social and political concerns. Her recent work uses digital manipulation to crop, scale, and blur the media images she selects. Once she is satisfied with her editing, Mehretu projects the imagery onto a canvas and traces it or airbrushes it onto the surface with the guidance of a grid, which serves as a ground that she builds up in a labor-intensive process of layering and erasure. Among the Multitude VI—the sixth in a suite of works with the same title—was made in this way. Executed with jagged black marks over a blood-red and sea-blue airbrushed ground, it continues Mehretu’s engagement with contemporary political crises, drawing on images documenting migrant detention centers at US borders and the violence of far-right anti-immigration protests.