Commencement Speaker: Julie Mehretu

RISD welcomed renowned artist and alum Julie Mehretu to campus to deliver the keynote address at the 143rd Commencement Ceremony on May 30, 2026.

Artist Julie Mehretu stands in front of one of her paintings — Photo: Josefina Santos (@josefinasantos)

Julie Mehretu is an artist for our times. After earning her MFA in Painting/Printmaking from RISD in 1997, she became widely known for large-scale abstract paintings, prints, and drawings. She received a prestigious MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship in 2005. Her monumental piece Uprising of the Sun is featured on the facade of the soon-to-open Obama Presidential Center.

Deeply committed to social justice and cultural preservation, Mehretu made a contribution in 2024 to the Whitney Museum that makes it possible for those under the age of 25 to visit for free. It is for these accomplishments and many more that RISD is thrilled to award Mehretu with an honorary degree.

Julie Mehretu’s bio

Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1970, Julie Mehretu MFA 97 PR/PT creates paintings, drawings, and prints that articulate the contemporary social experience and explore palimpsests of history, from geological time to modern-day phenomenology. After earning her MFA in Painting and Printmaking from RISD, she moved to New York City, where she continues to live and work.

Mehretu has received many prestigious awards, including the MacArthur Award (2005) and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture (2025). Time Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in 2020, and she recently created Uprising of the Sun, an 85x25’ glass mural for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, IL.

Her work has been exhibited extensively in museums and biennials, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2019); the High Museum, Atlanta (2020); the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2021); the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2021); the Palazzo Grassi Pinault Collection, Venice (2024); the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2024); K21 in Dusseldorf, Germany (2025); and MSN Warsaw (2026).

Processing the Unbearable, Imagining the Radical

In her 2026 keynote address, Julie Mehretu discussed the unparalleled ability of artists and designers to challenge assumptions, use their vision, and “reach into the radical imaginary to conjure something into existence that wasn’t there before.”

Read the address

Watch the address

Mehretu and RISD at the Obama Presidential Center

Alongside Uprising of the Sun, the center includes work by RISD alums Spencer Finch, Jenny Holzer, and David Wiseman, honorary degree recipients María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Theaster Gates, Jr., and Nick Cave, and Associate Professor of Printmaking Tyanna J. Buie.