Julian opie brief biography examples wikipedia

Opie's art is instantly recognizable for a distinctive "clean" and pared-down graphic style that reflects his fascination with the ways viewers perceive and interact with their everyday world via signs and images. Drawing on influences as wide-reaching as classical portraiture and sculpture, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Japanese woodblock prints, and public signage such as information boards and traffic signs, his art has been realized through screen-printing, LED screens, billboard posters, and album covers.

Opie is also recognized as a member of the New British Sculpture Group, under whose banner he produced irreverent sculptures based on famous works of art, featuring everyday objects. Opie once said of his art that it is "like advertising", and while acknowledging that it can be "annoying and intrusive [like] a loud radio on the beach", he always aims "to please and amuse and intrigue Opie's earliest works were steel sculptures painted with oil.

These pieces aimed to resemble everyday objects such as tools, appliances, furniture, and food. The objects are not painted to look photorealistic, but rather like detailed and finely-shaded illustrations. Opie has said of Making It , "it is a self-conscious sculpture. It's aware of itself being made and that makes it into a very different thing.

The tools swamp the conventional wooden sculpture, in the same way that being aware that you are making art changes the art". He added that these pieces were a direct riposte to the trend in s sculpture, "a lot of which tried to iron out any sign of human interference". Although theirs was a diverse range of styles, all the artists were reacting against the dominant trends of Minimalism and Conceptual art.

As Tim Woods, professor of English and American Studies, explains, the work of the New British Sculpture movement was unified by four main themes: " a a synthesis of pop and kitsch, b a bricolage assemblage of the decaying UK urban environment and the waste of consumer society, c an exploration of the way in which objects are assigned meanings, and d a play of colour, wit and humour".

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By the late s, Opie had established his signature portrait style. Paintings such as Gary, Popstar feature thick lines and minimal details that create a broad likeness of the sitter. Opie's portraiture process usually begins with a quick fifteen to twenty minute photography session with the subject.