Heavier than air (written form)

Around 2009, Ethiopian-American artist Julie Mehretu inaugurated a new series of paintings often grouped under the name Grey Paintings, characterized by a darker palette and tonal range. A complex configuration of more energetic and spectral graphic marks organizes the space of the canvas with a dynamism and nervous tension never before explored by the artist. The layering of planes creates a sense of depth, with blurring effects, superimpositions, and overlays that limit the viewer’s field of vision.

In Heavier than air (written form), greater importance is given to the result of the gesture, creating variations in intensity, rhythm, and depth that evoke the practice of urban graffiti—where the canvas becomes a wall, a projection surface for the artist’s inscriptive impulse. The notion of a “visual neologism” has often been invoked to describe Julie Mehretu’s work. Through citation, echo, and sampling effects, the artist reuses and reconfigures graphic marks drawn from a variety of historical repertoires—ranging from the mescaline drawings of Henri Michaux, characterized by the “seismographic vibration of the line,” to Chinese painting and calligraphy.