Julie Mehretu Stadia 2 Artist

Julie Mehretu was born in 1970 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She is an artist that is best known for her densely layered abstract paintings and prints. Stadia II is a compilation of Stadia I and Stadia III. Mehretu created Stadia II in 2004 using mediums of ink and acrylic on canvas. Her works engage the history of nonobjective art from Constructivism to Futurism, posing contemporary questions about the relationship between utopian impulses and abstraction.
Most of the lines she draws are curved or diagonal. Horizontal curves slide down the core of the canvas, creating the sense of a tornado-like vortex. Mehretu’s style possesses vivid colors and has a certain movement to it. The initial artistic elements, curvy lines, and messy setup are appealing.
In my opinion, Julie Mehretu created Stadia I, II, and III as Art of Personal Expression. She creates personal expressions by expressing her personal feelings and worldviews in art. I can see Mehretu work as extremely effective in the translation of depth and motion across two-dimensional canvases from an atmospheric perspective. The patterns the artist use in Stadia II can be related to representational art. She sets an example of an artist who thoroughly considers issues of representation and intentionally makes her figures a little unrecognizable in order to construct statements about the individual’s role in our complex world. Mehretu claims that she draws from the past and imagines the future. Once again, Stadia II captures the sense of our time in history. It focuses on systems, architecture, and space. Mehretu portrays an abstract language which deals with today’s society as well as herself as an artist in a modern world. Mehretu’s work, mainly Stadia II, shows how society is constructed and the chaos of it all. Perhaps that is what makes it so profound. It has a questioning nature to the pre-established concepts about the muddled, violent, and disordered world we live in