Research File: Drawing

 This blog shows research information of two artists, Otobong Nkanga and Julie Mehrutu. I am going to write about what makes their works interesting to me, what draws them together, and what are the differences. 

Here are one example of Nkanga's art and three for Julie Mehretu.

Otobong Nkanga I

n Pursuit of Bling: The Transformation 2014 

Tate

This is one of the pieces from Nkanga's exhibition which 'explores the politics of land and the relationship to the body, and histories of land acquisition and ownership'. (Tate, 2019) I like the way how Nkanga erases the heads because the head has too many information. I think it makes her works successful that audiences pay more attention to the bodies. Also, her work made in an innovative way that she combined the human body and geometry. Those geometries show a strong relationship to the land.

 Julie Mehretu's work from the Whitney Museum of American Art

She is one of my favourite artists. I like the beats in her vivid paintings, the colours, the strokes, etc. I feel a music into this painting.

 Julie Mehretu always shares her mind spirit to the public. She works in large scale, multilayered art, abstract paintings, drawings, and prints. 

Julie Mehretu,

Epigraph Damascus, 2016

Photogravure, sugar lift aquatint, spit bite aquatint, open bite

250x575 cm

The White Cube

'Her paintings present a tornado of a visual incident where gridded cities become fluid and flattened, like many layers of urban graffiti. Mehretu has described her rich canvases as “story maps of no location”, seeing them as pictures into an imagined, rather than actual reality. Through its cacophony of marks, her work seems to represent the speed of the modern city depicted, conversely, with the time-aged materials of pencil and paint.' (White Cube, 2020) As the description on the White Cube website, Julie Mehretu's work consists of significant strokes, like a tornado. In this case, the Epigrph Damascus (2016) looks like a picture of a herd of crows or bats in my eyes. Every single line has their life in her painting. This painting reminds me a exercise in class, which to use mark-making to show 'Chaos'.

Julie Mehretu

Being Higher II

2013

Ink and acrylic on canvas

84x60 in.

Different from the last painting, this one is more watery, which the black is lighter. I like the texture of the ink marks, it looks like a style of ancient Chinese ink drawing. It shows some birds are trying to fly high. I think Julie Mehretu's art leave a imagination to people-they like clouds in the sky, changeable and irregular, you can see anything in her pieces.

The geometry draws the first two pieces together; this element makes the paintings contemporary, also creates the beat. The squares and triangles in Nkanga's painting have regular position, and all facing down.  It shows clamminess. Conversly, Mehretu makes more changes in the shapes, colours, and perspectives. It describes a very cheerful song.

References:

1. TATE (2019) OTOBANG NKANGA FROM WHERE I STAND. [Online] Available from: otobong-nkanga. [Accessed by 30/10/20]

2. WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART (2019) JULIE MEHRETU MAR 19-AUG 8, 2021. [Online image] Available from: julie-mehretu. [Accessed by 30/10/20]

3. WHITE CUBE (2020) Julie Mehretu. [Online] Available from: julie_mehretu. [Accessed by 31/10/20]