Drawing for Helen's Room

With decisive, curving pen strokes, and stuttering, feathery brushmarks, Julie Mehretu (b. 1970) creates a delicate, gestural drawing. Layering marks to create tone and add staccato texture, in Drawing for Helen’s Room (2018), Mehretu demonstrates the lyrical, ethereal technique that has brought her international acclaim. In this work, as in others, the marks coalesce to create the gentle suggestion of figuration, drawing together and then floating apart again. Created on occasion of the artist's first solo museum exhibition in the United Kingdom, this work responds to the beautiful, intimate spaces of Kettle’s Yard, the University of Cambridge’s art museum. Kettle’s Yard is located in the former home of Jim Ede, a curator at the Tate Gallery in London, and his wife, Helen. Mehretu created this drawing specially for Helen’s bedroom, a beautiful white-washed, minimalist room, whose simplicity and elegance directly inspired the artist’s similarly delicate response.