Among the Multitude VI

Drawing on diverse references—literature, architecture, activism, music, calligraphy, and art history, from prehistoric to contempo- rary times—Julie Mehretu’s work across canvas, paper, and print addresses pressing social and political concerns. Recent work has also seen an increasing investment in digital manipulation. Mehretu begins this process by using Adobe Photoshop software 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 on with the guidance of a grid, square by square. This serves as a ground that she builds up with further airbrushing, screen printing, and brushstrokes of acrylic paint and ink in a labor-intensive process of layering and erasure. Among the Multitude VI—the sixth in a suite of works under 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 crisis, drawing on images documenting migrant detention centers at U.S. borders and the violence of far-right anti-immigration pro- tests. As she remarks, “I work with images that haunt me, they nag at my core.”