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Meet the

Artist

The UNITY Project: Milton Public Schools

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Enduring Understanding

Stories that reflect your family, culture, language and history are important to remember so you don't forget where you came from. Stories also give us a way to see into someone else's life. Stories connect us to each other.

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Vocabulary

Neo-e

WRITE AN AGENDA HERE.

WRITE AN AGENDA HERE.

WRITE AN AGENDA HERE.

ABSTRACT ART

Imagine you have a big box of colorful shapes and squiggles. Abstract art is like using those shapes and squiggles to create a picture that doesn't have to look like anything specific. It's like making a beautiful mess with colors and lines!

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Julie Mehretu

American Artist

1970 - present

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Born on November 28, 1970, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Her family left Ethiopia when she was 7 years old because it was not safe there. She grew up in Michigan, USA.

Julie is famous for using dots, lines, symbols, and shapes to make her art, which is very large in size.

From a distance, you can see Julie’s art, but as you come close to it, you see it’s made up of all these small parts.

ABOUT THE

Artist

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Mehretu’s art style is called

Abstract

← Stadia 1

Haka (and Riot), 2019→

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So big!

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What story is Julie Mehretu’s artwork telling?

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Empirical Construction, Istanbul. 2003

1.

2.

3.

What’s going on in this artwork?

What makes you say that?

What more can you find?

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Let’s tell our own STORY

Art Project

Inspired by

Julie Mehretu

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  • white paper
  • markers
  • crayons
  • colored pencils

Supplies

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If you are a bird flying and looking down, what do you see?

Make marks, drawings, tracings and scribbles on your paper that might look like the place you are thinking about. Then try drawing dots, squares, circles and lines on top of. Be sure to overlap shapes and images. You can also use your pencils and press harder to make harder lines and press softer to make softer lines. Keep adding layers until you are done.

Artmaking

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Additional Resources and Citations

  • Slide 2: Julie Mehretu in her Chelsea studio, JOSEFINA SANTOS
  • Slide 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Mehretu
  • Slide 5: Tom Powell Imaging, Vogue
  • Slide 10: For more info, visit: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/91778
  • This work is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Credit: SlidesCarnival for the presentation template