Unraveling Identity Through Lines: Julie Mehretu’s Abstract Mapping

Bickis, Heidi. 2016. “Inhabiting Grey Space and Unravelling Bodily Outlines: Engaging with Julie Mehretu’s Lined Abstractions.” Thesis Eleven136 (1): 124–39.

Julie Mehretu
Artwork: Grey Area, 2009
Series of abstract paintings

Julie Mehretu, Untitled (Grey Area), 2009. Drypoint with Chine-collé on Somerset paper, full margins, in original charcoal card folder with printed artist’s name. 30.3 × 35.3 cm (11 9/10 × 13 9/10 in).

Installation view: The Deutsche Bank Series at the Guggenheim, Julie Mehretu: Grey Area, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2010. Photo: David Heald © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York

Julie Mehretu, Middle Grey (Grey Area), 2007–2009. Ink and acrylic on canvas. 304.8 × 426.7 cm.

Julie Mehretu’s Grey Area series uses layers of architectural drafts and gestural marks to produce complex spatial and emotional environments. Her abstract linework doesn’t just describe a location—it dismantles it. Her lines shift between control and chaos, mapping the psychological terrain of identity, history, and social transformation.

Her work deeply informs my own abstract drawing process. While Mehretu references urban space and historical weight, I draw from the mental and emotional landscapes of contemporary youth—fluid, uncertain, and fragmentary. Her method of layering and disorienting perspective offers a visual metaphor for fluctuating self-identity and the internal turbulence that defines so much of our emotional experience today.

What strikes me most is her treatment of the line not as a means to define, but to disrupt. In my own work, I’ve started embracing the open-ended, unresolved quality of mark-making—not forcing structure but letting the composition remain intentionally incomplete. Like Mehretu, I use abstraction not to escape meaning, but to reflect its instability.

#abstraction #line #emotionalmapping #fragmentedidentity #fluidself #gesture