Conversion (S.M. del Popolo/after C.)

A contemporary history painting rendered in the language of abstraction, Conversion belongs to a series of works begun during the tumultuous months of 2019–2020, a period beset by myriad cultural, social, political, ecological, and medical emergencies. The title references a passage from the Bible, the conversion of St. Paul, likewise to one of that passage’s most striking incarnations: Caravaggio’s Conversion on the Way to Damascus (1600–1601), located in the Cerasi Chapel at the Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, a place and a painting with which Mehretu has a long relationship. Like Caravaggio, Mehretu relies on chiaroscuro, or the staging of light and dark, to convey the meaning she seeks, specifically the drama of transformation, the ecstasy of enlightenment, and the eradication of evil. Rendered through a painstaking process of addition and subtraction, application and erasure, Conversion is comprised of linear gestures that swoop, swirl, and clash from within an airy, atmospheric space suffused with an electric charge, like a hurricane.