Julian Opie

BIO
Julian Opie was born in London, England, in 1958, and raised in Oxford. He studied at Goldsmiths College of the University of London, graduating in 1982.

Opie’s work often involves the reduction of a photographic image using computer software. In his portraits, the human face is defined by black outlines and areas of flat color. Facial features are reduced to black circles and lines. He also uses the computer to create animated simulations of driving, walking and climbing using the same reductive technique.

The work of Julian Opie is collected by museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; and the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery in London, England.

ART
To create this work, Julian Opie begins with a video of two people walking. Using computer software, the artist eliminates most of the details in the original image, but retains the outlines and movements. He makes drawings of the figures at regular intervals. He joins those drawings together to produce figures that move with the fluidity of real human beings.

The drawings are translated into a format that can be played by the LED panels to create a continuous animation. The heads of these figures are simple circles. Since they appear to be anonymous and identical, we might be tempted to regard them as symbols for every man and woman; but the title Opie gives them references to specific people—Kiera and Julian, Bruce and Sara (tour stop 21).

Opie uses the same technique to create Bruce and Sara as he did to make Kiera and Julian (tour stop 2). Starting with a video of two people walking, Opie reduces the video images to drawings and joins them together in a format that can be played by LED panels to create a continuous animation. Representing the every man and every woman, the anonymous and identical images are surprisingly given names of specific people—Kiera and Julian, Bruce and Sara.

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