Slouching Towards Bethlehem

In these chromatic large-scale prints, Julie Mehretu combines photogravure with classic intaglio printing techniques. The base layers are distorted news images from recent anti-immigration protests. The media images are blurred to allow the subliminal forms, color and light from the photos to merge with the complex compositions of agitated gestures and erasures which Mehretu executed on copper plates in a variety of printing techniques.
Mehretu’s painting and drawing practice has long been complemented by printmaking projects. Her first collaboration with BORCH Editions, Epigraph, Damascus (2016), marked a point of departure both in terms of scale and technical complexity of her print projects. The prints from Slouching Towards Bethlehem testify to the shift in Mehretu’s painterly practice reflecting her preoccupation with modified digital imagery as well as her evolved mark-making.