You're not just this person who's from your own specific experiences, but the collective experience of what makes you who you are because of time.
Julie MehretuI don't ever work in a way where something is an illustration of an event, but when something is occurring at the same time I see it as very informed by that.
Julie MehretuThe investigation of making is illuminating towards that moment rather than the other way around, a reversal of the way that I would approach making a painting before. I think that it gets to a richer illumination of the moment, which is what I was trying to do at the beginning but going about it a little backwards.
Julie MehretuI'm not trying to spell out a story. I still think you feel the painting, and the reason you read the mark is because you also feel the mark.
Julie MehretuThe earlier, more analytic impulse was to use very rational but kind of absurd techniques or tendenciesโmapping, charting, and architectureโto try and make sense of who I was in my time and space and political environment. But thereโs only so much truth to a theoretical understanding of something.
Julie Mehretu