According to JulianOpie.com, Julian Opie was born in London in 1958 and still lives and works there to this day. In 1983 he graduated from Goldsmiths School of Art, London. He is associated with line drawing, sculpting and digital art. Julians work has a very simple colourful theme where he eliminates most details from the image and uses bold black lines to draw. As seen in this image, “Street Portraits” which I found on his website under 2014 paintings.
Opies work explores the themes of nature and people and the observed world. I think minimalism is the idea behind the work of Julian Opie, based on this article I read from his website https://julianopie.com/texts/world-drawn-introduction-art-julian-opie-polish-audience-2014 .
His work is using skin tone colours and deep black lines with bright saturated colours as backgrounds. He uses the method of trial and error, and the technique of drawing and then importing to computer to add colour and adjustment. Aside from portraits he also makes creative activities like, Sculpture and film. To make this work Opie needed to be skilled in drawing, using software such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. I think the materials were not the inspiration for his work, but rather, the cartoons he grew up watching and the observed world around him.
His work gives a calm relaxed mood at the simplicity of the lines and colours, it is rather happy and soothing and there are no extreme contrasts or chaotic lines.
The work is made for the public, in the UK and abroad. I watched an interview with Julian Opie (https://youtu.be/kViNa09q3o4?t=116) and he said that , regarding people coming to his exhibitions, “What Im really hoping is that people have a good time. That they enjoy the process of looking.” From seeing the LED art displays Julian made, we are able to see that his work is modern and that it has been created after the 1960s. I could not find any political messages in Julian Opie’s work and the majority of his work is portraits which cannot convey much meaning to the political side of things.
I like Julian Opie’s work and its the simple bold colours that draws me in. The artwork inspires me because it shows how something simple can look so good, and I don’t have to become incredibly skilled at drawing realistic type portraits to still be able to show the same emotion and power in the artwork. It affects my mood because it is calming and nice to look at.
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