Julian Opie: Creating, Or Wandering In A Dark House

At a time when other teenagers like to do mischievous things after school, 12-year-old Julian Opie spent most of her time in the 1970's Oxford faculty dormitory. One by one, he was engaged in his own artistic creation. He especially liked to take out his paintings again and revise them or overturn them. Decades later, Julian Opie, who has become one of the most internationally influential artists in the British contemporary art circle, recalled that time in an interview with NEWSWEEK: "it was at that time that my heart strongly wanted to go back to the truth of things." Today, he has been exploring how to make today's works more concise and beautiful than those of the previous day.

Julian Opie is the kind of artist who is "famous before it's too late.". He studied at King Smith College of art in London and studied with his mentor and concept artist Michael Craig Martin. At the 1982 graduation exhibition, the 24-year-old successfully won the favor of many collectors and galleries on the spot with a multimedia device -- an art work with animation film, strokes, bathtub and perfume elements, one of which is still acting as its agent. Since then, from New York to Seoul, from London to Zurich, Julian Opie has gained more opportunities to exhibit her paintings and sculptures internationally. In addition to the continuous international art exhibitions, his works of art are also found in every corner of people's lives, sometimes on billboards on city streets, sometimes on the album covers of rock band blur, and sometimes on the cover of UNIQLO's look book.

Julian Opie。 Picture green

Portrait is an important theme in Opie's works. He is keen on exploring the nature of representation and focusing on the way of perceiving the world. His "human figures" with no details are either alone or in a crowded city, running, walking, dancing, posing The symbolic black line outline figure image is reduced to only the basic lines and color blocks. The concise and distinctive artistic language features make Opie's paintings highly recognizable and can always be remembered. He is influenced by the clarity of his portraits, the history of his modern portraits, the use of pictographs, and the use of pictographs in the history of public life. Looking at the side faces of these characters, it seems that anyone can find themselves, which is the prototype of every modern person walking in the city in a hurry.

In addition to paying close attention to artistic forms, Opie's perception and understanding of images are also very unique. When collecting material for character modeling, he will send two assistants to the park to photograph the walkers. In reviewing these films, he happened to find many joggers running from the camera, which aroused his interest in creation. "By drawing a stride at about 30 frames, I can animate the photos and play them all the time," he told the guardian. For graphic painting, I would combine several joggers to create a complex composition that implies dynamic movement. Make the runner look like after this second, he will leave the camera and move on, and the carefully planned composition will be changed and permanently disappear It is such a delicate instantaneous picture that gets eternal life under the creation and capture of Opie. Perhaps this is the reason why Julien Opie's "image experiment" has been successful again and again.

On November 6, Julian Opie's first solo exhibition of Shanghai space of ritsen Gallery officially opened. This exhibition is also Opie's second solo exhibition in China, bringing seven new works created in 2020, including three portraits of the crowd, three independent sculptures and one screen cycle animation. The theme of the new work mainly draws on the ubiquitous images in the urban landscape. Each character with different styles, actions, clothes and accessories is either concentrating on the mobile phone, listening to music with headphones, or looking down at the road. Although people are close to each other when walking, they are deeply immersed in their own world and are not affected by the surrounding activities. "I want to explore a visual effect that can put a lot of images together, but don't have to stick to what you see in front of you," Julian Opie said recently in an exclusive interview with 21st century business reporter. I've collected some visual elements, but sometimes it's hard to tell which elements make such a visual experience. People have a lot of immediate attention to what they see, but I want them to relax and generate new images and visual experiences from a wider range of observation and creative experiences. "

21st century: since childhood, I have been dedicated to "renovating" your own creativity. How do you understand creation and innovation?

Julian Opie: for me, to create a work is to do an experiment, like trying to determine the direction of a journey by just relying on the compass, or trying to make a dish out of the food left in the refrigerator. These paintings have been used by me to experiment with many projects I want to try. I collect materials and observations, and then try to experiment in my mind, on paper, in a 3D computer model of a computer - and sometimes try to use a wood model of a physical size or ink-jet on a wall.

I will try to avoid being trapped in preconceived ideas or being bound by rules, try to catch fleeting inspiration and try various creative solutions. In my opinion, the light boxes on the airport bulletin boards and the "overflowing" advertisements on the facade are like meaningful codes, while the surrounding environment can be regarded as the noise in the overall landscape. It's a special ability to have a different way of looking at the world. I'm more interested in how to see the world than what I see in the world.

21st century: have you found anything new in your art creation recently?

Julian Opie: in recent years, I want to get a deeper understanding of art history by trying to collect different works of art. Whether it is the classical portraits of England and France in the 17th and 18th centuries, or the ukiyo paintings of Japan, or the early works of art of Rome, Greece, Egypt, and even the stone age of Southeast Asian tribes, they are all involved. When I create my own works, I find that there are many connections and possibilities between me and other arts.

The 21st century: compared with previous works, the characters you created in your new work are more concise and abstract. Why is there such a change?

Julian Opie: when I write, I like to "juggle" in the three dimensions of "the appearance of things", "the way of looking at things" and "the feeling of things". The above three dimensions are constructed according to the meaning, use, reference, texture, distance, color, proportion and value. These complex elements make art creation sound like an impossible task, but when we create each work, we can still adjust one element to make it a little different from the other, and then re observe the new experimental results. Sometimes a ship glides a little to port or starboard, and it goes to unknown places. Sometimes I feel that artistic creation is like wandering in a dark room. It seems that only the dark can be seen. But sometimes they will pick up some sharp or useless items at random, sometimes they will find a key that can really open the door. The door opens and we fall into another dark room full of possibilities.

21st century: This is your second solo exhibition in China. How do you feel? What's your impression of China?

Julian Opie: it's very exciting to hold an exhibition in China and show so many works in Shanghai. But I spend most of my time working on this side of the earth, so I can't pretend to know everything except Shanghai, China. So far, my impression of China has always been a dynamic and interesting place. I really want to see more and learn more about it. (editor Dong Mingjie)