This exhibition will mark Julie Mehretu's fifth solo presentation at White Cube. One of the most influential artists of her generation, Mehretu's complex, multi-layered, calligraphic language is acutely attuned to the constant transformation of the political moment. Returning to White Cube's Bermondsey site for the first time since 'Liminal Squared' in 2013, the exhibition will encompass all of the gallery's spaces and debut three new series of paintings. Two of these series are executed in ink and acrylic on canvas, with the third comprising new work on semi-translucent polyester mesh. Working with imagery originating from current affairs media sources as well as other channels, specific works reference the ongoing war in Ukraine and the US Capitol insurrection of 6 January 2021, Mehretu translates the material to arrive at her own distinctive form of abstraction.
Julie Mehretu makes large-scale, gestural paintings that are built up through layers of acrylic paint on canvas overlaid with mark-making using pencil, pen, ink and thick streams of paint. Mehretu's work conveys a layering and compression of time, space and place and a collapse of art historical references, from the dynamism of the Italian Futurists and the geometric abstraction of Malevich to the enveloping scale of Abstract Expressionist colour field painting. In her highly worked canvases, Mehretu creates new narratives using abstracted images of cities, histories, wars and geographies with a frenetic mark making that for the artist becomes a way of signifying social agency as well suggesting an unravelling of a personal biography.
An international art powerhouse, White Cube was established in 1993 in London by art dealer Jay Jopling. In its space on Duke Street, it served as the early exhibition venue for many now internationally acclaimed British artists, including Tracey Emin, Gilbert & George, Rachel Kneebone and Antony Gormley, who still show with the gallery today.
