In 2016, Jennifer J. Lee, 47, was one of 10 artists assisting the abstract painter Julie Mehretu on a large-scale commission for the lobby of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art that would lead to the creation of one of the bigger paintings of the 21st century so far. Called “Howl, Eon (I, II),” it’s a history painting of epic proportions, composed of two 27-by-32-foot canvases covered in ink markings that conjure the grandeur and violence of American westward expansion. To help silk-screen shapes directly onto the canvases, Lee had to use a scissor lift inside Mehretu’s New York studio. The final product is larger than Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgment.” Read More