Julian Opie

Julian Opie 1958 London - lives and works in London The Briton Julian Opie, born in London on December 12, 1958, has been one of the most important representatives of contemporary art in Great Britain since the end of the 1980s with his unmistakable, comic-like visual language, which reduces it to the most essential. From 1979-1983 Julian Opie studied art at the Goldsmith School of Art in London under Michael Craig-Martin. After his studies, Julian Opie quickly established himself in the London art scene. As early as 1983 Wulf Herzogenrath exhibited Julian Opie's works together with Tony Cragg's works at the Kölnischer Kunstverein. In 1987 Julian Opie took part in Documenta 8 in Kassel. In 1995 Julian Opie receives the Sargant Fellowship of the British School at Rome in Italy and in 1995/96 a scholarship for a residency at the Atelier Calder in Saché, France. Universal symbols for the idiosyncrasies of the people portrayed In his art, both steel sculptures, canvas paintings, prints and more and more moving images on LED flat screens, Julian Opie has since the beginning of his artistic work found an ever greater reduction of the formal language. It follows the simplifying, brightly colored stylistic language of Pop Art, reminiscent, for example, of Keith Haring's manikins or Andy Warhol's flatly colored silkscreens. In its contemplative beauty of form, Julian Opie's art is related to Alex Katz. With broad black contour lines and unshaded, flat areas of color, his pictorial language, which is reduced to the essential, shows primarily portraits of people and also landscapes. In the works of art, which are mostly created with the help of the computer, Julian Opie explores the limits of graphic stylization, but by reducing the internal elements of the face or body as much as possible, he still manages to capture the essential characteristics and create recognizable portraits. "For each person I draw, I try to create a universal symbol", says Julian Opie about his fascinating artworks with enormous expressiveness. "Colored Runners" and "Walking Figures" on LED screens Starting as early as 1993, Julian Opie's oeuvre includes moving images, which, as LED wall screens, also show the stylized people in motion. As technology advances, the possibilities for Julian Opie's art become more sophisticated and of higher quality and astonishing expressiveness. The most recent works of "Walking People" (2017) or "Colored Runners" (2020) show endlessly walking or running people, who nevertheless do not move from the spot in their picture frame, which, for all the dynamism and hip modernity of the form, is not devoid of a subtle humor. The simplified landscapes that capture the focused gaze on the sky, for example, as in "Midday Sky" or "Eneving Sky" (both 2018), allow the viewer to sink into the beautiful contemplation of the condensation trails of airplane dots slowly moving through the picture in the morning or evening sky, or to pause in front of hypnotically slow-moving grazing sheep on green grass ("Grazing Sheep," 2017). Important representative of British contemporary art Julian Opie's success has continued to grow strongly in recent years. The list of museums and collections that own works by Julian Opie reads like a Who's Who of the international collecting and museum landscape. Julian Opie's artworks are shown in renowned museums worldwide, and the artist is represented by a dozen galleries internationally. The National Portrait Gallery in London hosted exhibitions in 2011 and 2017. In 2019, the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg will show Julian Opie's works as an important contribution to sculpture in the 21st century. In 2018, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne presents him as Britain's most influential living artist. Also in Melbourne, Julian Opie will participate in the group exhibition "We Change the World" in 2021. Julian Opie lives and works in London.