The Ethiopian-American artist Julie Mehretu (b. 1970) is one of the pre-eminent abstract painters of her generation. Her work, which mostly comprises large-scale canvases, is rigorously thought-out and yet buoyed by a sense of liberation and vitality. She often uses maps and architectural plans as the basis of her works and applies her own seemingly playful brushstrokes on top; more recently she has projected photographs onto canvases and used these blurred images as a guide to her painting – a layered approach that speaks to her interest in history and identity. In the first ever exhibition of Mehretu’s work to take place in Australia, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney is showing more than 80 painting and drawings dating from 1995 to the present, covering the early development of her style to more recent works such as the cycle Femenine in nine (2023), which revolves around the colour black, and her TRANSpaintings (2023–24) – huge paintings on translucent polyester mesh, which are hung within the gallery space rather than on the walls and are held in industrial-looking aluminium frames designed by the Iranian artist Nairy Baghramian (19 November–27 April 2025).
Find out more from the Museum of Contemporary Art’s website.
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Untitled (2000), Julie Mehretu. Photo: Cathy Carver; courtesy and © the artist
Hineni II (2019–20), Julie Mehretu. Photo: Tom Powell Imaging; courtesy and © the artist
Femenine in nine, part 1 (2023), Julie Mehretu. Photo: White Cube; courtesy and © the artist
TRANSpaintings (mouth flight) (2024), Julie Mehretu, with aluminium sculpture frame by Nairy Baghramian. Photo: Tom Powell Imaging; courtesy and © the artist