All of her works, regardless of format, involve symbolism drawn from graffiti, city maps, and comic book graphics. Explosions and sharp or arching line work are constant themes running throughout her body of work. Mehretu has drawn inspiration from the large-scale works of Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman.

Mehretu’s interest in layered imagery lends itself naturally to printmaking. She has explored lithography, screen printing, chine collé, intaglio, drypoint, engraving, aquatint, and spit-bite techniques in projects at several studios in the U.S. and Europe.Entropia (review) (2004) and the relatedEntropia: Construction(2005), made at Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis, are cartographic constructions of color and line that suggest imagined territories in which chaos reigns. The more stately black-and-whiteAuguries(2010), made at Gemini G.E.L. on Los Angeles, is a grid of 12 etchings that, at 15 feet long, rivals her paintings in scale and impact.

Ideas of time, space and place are enmeshed in the work of Julie Mehretu. Drawing is fundamental to her practice, whether in works on paper, painting or printmaking. The artist’s dextrous mark-making comes together in a characteristic swirl, an act of assertion in response to social and political change. ‘As I continue drawing,’ she says, ‘I find myself more and more interested in the idea that drawing can be an activist gesture. That drawing – as an informed, intuitive process, a process that is representative of individual agency and culture, a very personal process – offers something radical.’