“[The collaborative process of printmaking has] very subtly adjusted the way I was thinking about what I was painting again. [It’s] about trying to see fundamental things, like how the ink sits on the paper, and how different techniques give different results and affect the way the image can look. It usually was, and is, in the printmaking that new things are invented, which I then want to bring into the painting and drawing.”
— Julie Mehretu
Powerful and provocative, Julie Mehretu’s interpretation of abstraction through her distinct visual language cements her status as one of the most unique voices of her generation. Drawing from a wide range of source materials ranging from personal encounters to geopolitical events, the artist moves away from the static grids of modernist painters and creates overwhelming compositions that mirror the ever-changing landscape of current times. While her paintings are held to critical acclaim, Mehretu is just as renowned for her prints, which she began creating in 2008. Equally imbued with the illusion of space and movement, Mehretu’s prints are created by layering various shades of ink on a copper print to achieve complex gradients, which places an emphasis on the dissection of the mark-making process for which her paintings are celebrated for.
Another edition of of Six Bardos: Last Breath exhibited at New York, Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl, Julie Mehretu: A Decade of Printmaking, 25 March – 18 September 2021
Created a decade after her first foray into printmaking, the present work is one of six prints from the Six Bardos series, inspired by Mehretu’s trip to the Mogao Caves in the Gobi Desert. The almost monotone palette in Six Bardos: Last Breath seems to echo the contemplative nature of bardo – the transitional state between life and death or the ‘inbetween’, making reference to such concepts recorded in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Composed of a chaotic tangle of black ink that recalls both the flowing brushstrokes of Chinese calligraphy and the aesthetic of urban graffiti, the present work departs from the strict lines in her previous editions – instead, the crescendo of gestural marks are only just contained by the physical limits of the paper surface.
Representing the cycle of rebirth, traditional Buhddist teachings separate bardo into six different states: birth and life, dream state, meditation, moment of death, luminosity and transmigration. Titled Last Breath, the present work alludes to the first bardo, in which the physical form of human life commences from conception until the last breath ever taken. Aggressively extending in all directions, the frenzied flurry of black strokes envelops the entire sheet in darkness. Near the centre of the top edge however, a streak of pink shines through the gloom, as if signifying the final fragment of mindstream that sustains the work’s last breath.
Detail of the present lot
As recognisable shapes dissolve into the non-representational, and its meaning emerge slowly over time, the current work not only exemplifies the artist’s commitment to reinventing mark-making, but also provides an introspective window into Mehretu’s continued exploration of transformation in the modern age.
Born in 1970 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Julie Mehretu currently works and lives in New York. Known for her dynamic abstract paintings and prints, she has received numerous prestigious awards throughout her illustrious career, including the MacArthur Fellowship in 2005, and the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts Award in 2015. Notable recent exhibitions of the artist include They departed for their own country another way (a 9x9x9 hauntology) held at White Cube, London from 15 September – 5 November 2023 and Julie Mehretu, a comprehensive mid-career survey co-organised by the Whitney Museum of Art, New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from 25 March to 8 August 2021. Her works are also included in private and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Tate London, among others.
Provenance
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York Acquired from the above by the present owner
signed and dated 'Mehretu 2018' lower right; numbered '15/45' lower left aquatint with etching in 4 colours on paper sheet 128 x 186 cm. (50 3/8 x 73 1/4 in.) Executed in 2018, this work is number 15 from an edition of 45 plus 8 artist's proofs.