Art star Julie Mehretu has used her nomadic life as the basis for her large-scale abstract paintings, which take on themes of public space, history, and war.

Born in Addis Ababa to an Ethiopian father and a white mother, Mehretu was seven when her academic parents fled Ethiopia's 1970s communist dictatorship for the considerably colder climes of East Lansing, Michigan. After heading back to her native continent for a year-long stint studying in Senegal, Mehretu attended Kalamazoo College and earned an MFA from RISD before landing in New York. The attention of the art world arrived in 2000 when she showed her work at P.S. 1's "Greater New York," an exhibition that introduced many to her signature style: map-like compositions combining familiar imagery (such as architectural plans) with abstract forms and graphic references drawn from sources as diverse as Japanese calligraphy and graffiti. Her work has since appeared at the Whitney and Sao Paolo Biennials and she's had a long list of group and solo exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. [Image via Getty]