1958 Born in, London, UK
Lives and works in London.

British contemporary pop artist, Julian Opie, swept the world with his work depicting human figures with rich colors and simple black lines.  Born in 1958 in London, Opie graduated from Goldsmith College in 1982.  He designed album covers and stages for renowned rock artists, such as Blur and U2.  At the same time, he participated in many famous pubic art projects.  His works can be found displayed in Britain’s Tate Museum, New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and Osaka’s The National Museum of Art.

Opie’s works are deeply influenced by billboard signs, eighteenth-century portraits, popular comics, and Japanese woodblock prints.  Initially taking photographs of subject matters, such as people, scenery, and still lifes, he then would digitally rework the photographs by reducing them to their simplest and purest linear forms. This form of creating art defines Opie’s unique style.  By using computer graphic techniques, he simplifies human figures and characteristics into whimsical symbols, thus, giving transitional portraits new meanings.

Opie likes to capture the different motions and forms of people.  An example of this is his use of “pedestrians,” the most common theme found in a city.  Combining digital technologies in his graphic and public artworks, Opie captures the forms of “pedestrians,” as well as their repetitive motions in his works. These are then displayed throughout cities to become interesting and beautiful symbols of a thriving metropolis.

Different from his ubiquitous LED multimedia public works, Opie’s graphic works show the poses and expressions of two geometric “standard human figures” which he has named, “Shahnoza” and “Ruth.”For“Portraits,” the artist uses simple lines to vividly capture the marriage of two human figures in the work “Luc and Ludivine Get Married.”  For his animation piece, “From My Kitchen Window,” Opie uses crisp colors that change slowly to reveal a poetic scenery as seen from a window.