Julie Mehretu
Mehretu has a very unique way of working. Her paintings are composed out of layers, fragments and movements. You can see she uses characters, architectural drawings, graffiti, comic books, air-brushing and ink wash for example in her paintings. All of these different forms of art are part of her process of how she describes the world around her. Mehretu starts her paintings by imposing a plan that will dictate the composition, then she responds to these outlines with architectural drawings. Gestural marks inhabit those spaces: they act on and are acted upon by the built space of the painting. What is special about her way of working is that she tries to describe with her paintings how we look at the world around us and how we live are lives within this constructed world we see. She unravels the conventionally given answers about the violent environment we live in nowadays.