Artist Julie Mehretu's awe-inspiring mural for Goldman Sachs in New York

Goldman Sachs commissioned an enormous abstract mural for their new office building in New York by the artist Julie Mehretu, for a wall inside that’s visible to the outside through wall-sized glass windows.

I read with interest because I want to know how it feels to paint without reference material with as much passion as I feel when I’m using reference. When I’ve tried it, I cover a surface as randomly as I can with shape, color, and line – not thinking, just letting it happen. I hide that painting from myself for a while. When I look at it again, within it I might see an arrangement that would look well in a finished work. The results get fairly good responses, but I wonder how other abstract painters feel when working.

It turns out that Mehretu does use her enormous collection of references, anything and everything that she thinks might work down the road, all of which she converts to abstractions. What interested me was how she paints in layers. Some layers contain her interpretation of the references, others intricate line work, still others shapes of very bright colors. Sometimes she sands down the final layer(s) and finds what she’s looking for in the way of a work of art. Most important to me is how powerfully her work speaks to her intuitively, how it tells her what to do next.

“Mural” is an ocean of abstract shapes, lines, suggestions of architecture and things related. Looking at the reproduction in the magazine, I felt as though the elements were carrying me along with them at great speed, reminding me of what happens when I’m Scuba diving a short distance above the bottom of the ocean floor, when the current is strong.

The link to the article doesn’t show the mural, so I’d recommend looking at it in the March 29, 2010 issue of the New Yorker; the article, by Calvin Tomkins, is titled "Big Art, Big Money". If I took a photo or a screen grab of it to post here, that would not do it justice.