Julie Mehretu
Ethiopian, b. 1970
Stadia II, 2004.
Ink and acrylic on canvas, 108 x 144 inches
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Stadia II, a painting from a series of three, fills its canvas with abstraction of color, line, and movement. Mehretu uses ink and acrylic to create a variety of lines, allowing some lines to be bolded by form and color and some to appear, as Mehretu explains, as fossils. Mehretu considers her paintings “psycho-geographies,” where exist a dichotomy of natural and man-made elements. In Stadia II, bright colors that represent flags and lights of a stadium accompany darker, “fossil-like” lines and natural colors (like the beige canvas itself) that resemble soil or ground on which the man-made objects stand. One interpretation may highlight that the contrast of the dulled lines and indistinct forms with the bright colors and bold forms suggest that, as the urban landscape consumes the resource from nature, the natural landscape falls dull. Like Abdalouye Konate’s Homme Nature II, Stadia II can give light to the human impact on the environment.
Dylan Bess ’22
Bibliography
Lewis, Sarah E. “UNHOMED GEOGRAPHIES The Paintings of Julie Mehretu.” Callaloo, vol.
33, no. 1, 2010, pp. 219–222. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40732811.
This article includes an analysis of paintings by Julie Mehretu and quotes from the artist herself. It includes a discussion of the “pyscho-geography” referred to in the description of Stadia II.
Chua, Lawrence, and Julie Mehretu. “Julie Mehretu.” BOMB, no. 91, 2005, pp. 24–31. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/40427192.
This is an interview with Julie Mehretu where she tells about her attitudes around urban landscapes and how people live in them. She also talks about her intentions with her Stadia series, using the stadium as a center where exists “everything… that we consume.”
Eleey, Peter. “Julie Mehretu’s ‘Perfect’ Pictures.” Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and
Enquiry, no. 14, 2006, pp. 98–106. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20711628.
This article from Afterall provides an analysis of Mehretu’s work with a concentration of the dynamic elements she uses create a world that strays far from perfection. Though the analysis does not mention Stadia II, it gives good insight to how Mehretu represents the world she sees.
