Local Calm

Julie Mehretu, Local Calm, 2005, sugar lift aquatint with color aquatint and spit bite aquatint, soft and hard ground etching, and engraving on Gampi paper chine collé, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Lichtenberg Family Foundation, 2006.23, © 2005, Julie Mehretu
Copied Julie Mehretu, Local Calm, 2005, sugar lift aquatint with color aquatint and spit bite aquatint, soft and hard ground etching, and engraving on Gampi paper chine collé, image: 27 7⁄8 x 39 7⁄8 in. (70.7 x 101.3 cm) sheet: 36 x 47 1⁄8 in. (91.3 x 119.6 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Lichtenberg Family Foundation, 2006.23, © 2005, Julie Mehretu

Artwork Details

Title
Local Calm
Artist
Printer
Publisher
Crown Point Press
Date
2005
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
image: 27 7⁄8 x 39 7⁄8 in. (70.7 x 101.3 cm) sheet: 36 x 47 1⁄8 in. (91.3 x 119.6 cm)
Copyright
© 2005, Julie Mehretu
Credit Line
Museum purchase through the Lichtenberg Family Foundation
Mediums Description
sugar lift aquatint with color aquatint and spit bite aquatint, soft and hard ground etching, and engraving on Gampi paper chine collé
Classifications
Highlights
Subjects
  • Abstract
Object Number
2006.23
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2006.23

Artwork Description

Local Calm is one of three etching that Julie Mehretu called collectively, Heavy Weather. She began working on these prints two weeks after hurricane Katrina had devastated New Orleans as the area was bracing for another storm, already named Rita. To express the wind currents and chaotic movement of the storm, she called upon her experience crossing the Drake Passage the previous year. This stretch of ocean between Cape Horn and Antarctica, where the Atlantic and Pacific meet, has some of the worst sea weather in the world. As her boat plunged and pitched, she focused her attention on a soaring albatross that was following the ship, gliding and catching air currents, majestically indifferent to the turmoil below. She imagined herself to be the albatross, caught in the maelstrom but able to carry on as nature intended. She captures the interaction of sea and air with lines, marks, and suggestions of forms.

Multiplicity, 2011