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Julie Mehretu: Manifestation, 2003

At first glance and from a distance, it seems quite clear we are looking at an abstract work. Yet the closer we come to Julie Mehretu’s painting and the longer we look at it, the more levels and details we notice. The base level, as it were, is a fine network of lines appearing to form here an architectural fragment – part of a bridge, or a skyscraper’s silhouette – and there streets and squares, the outlines of buildings, or bird’s eye views of urban landscapes. Everything seems evocative, only visible in all its delicacy when we look more closely.

Across this network of lines, there is a swirling painted element, dark and tempestuous – or is this really an ink brush sketch? As if a powerful wind is blowing the composition across the canvas rather like clouds across the sky, everything seems to be in flux. At some places, wild shapes coalesce into bird-like creatures and ghostly plant-like apparitions. The lined surfaces spread to form wings and chains of hills. Dots turn into massive flocks of birds or delicate veils which could dissolve at any moment. As if that was not enough, Julie Mehretu also adds graphic accents to the surfaces – coloured lines, dots, stars and computer-generated geometric patterns. Here, painting meets drawing, chaos collides with precision, intuitive gestures with meticulous details, abstraction with representation, and colour with black-and-white – and here too reality may well collide with fiction.

The images of Julie Mehretu, born in Addis Ababa and now living in New York, grant certain things visibility – as the title Manifestation suggests, enabling something to appear across time, space and place. Yet rather than offering explanations, her work opens up space for personal interpretations and narratives where – ultimately – much remains enigmatic.