Color hard-ground etching with spit bite aquatint and drypoint on paper
Julie Mehretu's work is rooted in a process of mark making through which she both builds up and obscures meaning. In her etchings, Mehretu prints multiple plates onto a single page. "A mark could be a marker of some kind of behavior, a social system," she explains. "Marks have agency. Combinations of them exist as symbols, signs, diagrams, maps, architectural plans, and other talismans of our lives." However, she also contends that the meanings of these marks should never be fully legible. Speaking about the creation of this piece, she says, "If I put too much more in it, it will become definitive. I want it to allude, suggest."
