How Julie Mehretu Creates Her Deeply Layered Abstractions Referencing Today’s Most Pressing Issues

In Julie Mehretu’s spacious studio in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, her sprawling, intricate abstract paintings hold center stage, along with the tools one would expect in the making of them: brushes, paints in a daunting array of colors, and a cherry picker that keeps her elevated at a painting’s height as she works to the music of Nina Simone, John Coltrane, Sun Ra, and Julius Eastman. A less visible tool that sits largely in the background, however, has made all the diffe