In fact, the possibility employed four assistants and paid for materials, a work studio in Berlin, and the hefty production costs involved in creating such a massive canvas. But perhaps more important, the Goldman commission gave Mehretu the opportunity to present her bold and nuanced work to new audiences.

From a distance, the painting looks merely like an interplay of colorful geometric shapes. But closer inspection reveals layers of precise architectural drawings, historical maps, and sublime imagery of early modes of commerce. Similarly, the seven works in her Grey Area series, on exhibit at New York’s Guggenheim Museum since May, highlight aspects of architecture, such as building facades and urban-planning grids, and include a complex set of pencil markings and erasings. The effect evokes the evolution of a city where buildings are destroyed and rebuilt over time. And again, the size of the paintings—10 by 14 feet—is meant to overwhelm observers. “I wanted the paintings to [create] this physical relationship with the body so that you had to face the painting and almost be immersed in it,” she explains. “I wanted there to be this perception that…you could get lost in it.”

Mehretu has always sought to lose herself in art. And although many of her paintings now sell for six and even seven figures, she still wants to focus solely on the work. “I just hate talking about the money,” she admits. “I used to think that if I could make art and have a life making art—that was the ultimate dream.” Now it’s the ultimate reality.

Julie Mehretu’s Grey Area exhibition will be at New York’s Guggenheim
Museum through October 6.

1. “Mural” in the Goldman Sachs building lobby 2. “Fragment,” 3. “Middle Grey,” 4. and “Atlantic Wall,” three Grey Area paintings from the Deutsche Bank series at the Guggenheim 5. Julie Mehretu