Julie Mehretu: A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory

New paintings and previously unseen works from the multilayered oeuvre of Julie Mehretu, combining international histories with a global, forward-looking consciousness

Drawing from inspirations as varied as Japanese manga, Ethiopian illuminated manuscripts, Baroque engravings, Futurism and Suprematism, American artist Julie Mehretu (born 1970) mixes these influences into colossal canvases resembling futuristic worlds. While grounded in histories of art and architecture, they also speak to urgent contemporary issues such as revolution, migration, global capitalism and climate change. Published to follow the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia's major career survey, A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory includes monumental and medium-format works, such as the artist's most recent TRANSpaintings, together with works on paper from the mid-1990s to the present. Many of these works have never been exhibited, meaning that this catalog will provide new scholarship on an artist regarded as one of the most significant painters of her generation.