Julian Opie is a British visual artist. He is a member of the New British Sculpture movement for the work he has done. Julian Opie is best known for his portraits and sculptures of people. His work, involves reducing photographs into figurative reproductions (created using computer software). His work came into light after he designed Blur’s ‘best of’ album cover. His work is held in many gallery including the Tate Gallery and MoMA in New York.
A lot of his work features a face in its simple form, just showing the basic lines of a face. His work often uses a black line as the outline for the face then block colours for the shadows. Also, his work has an animated sort of feel to them which makes them stand out from other artists.
“I often feel that trying to make something realistic is the one criterion I can feel fairly sure of. Another one I sometimes use is, would I like to have it in my room? And I occasionally use the idea, if God allowed you to show Him one [portrait] to judge you by, would this really be it?” – Julian Opie.
I quite like Opie’s work because it hides the complicated lives that humans lead and just shows the basics of what a person’s face looks like. This minimalist look makes his work look really smooth and clean compared to sketchy styles of portraits.
I particularly like Julian Opie’s sculptures because they have all the shading already on them which makes them look 3D and realistic yet you can still tell that it is a sculpture.
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