338 - Julian Opie, “Woman taking off man’s shirt. 5”, colour silkscreen print from 2003, gallery-framed

Julian Opie, “Woman taking off man’s shirt. 5”, colour silkscreen print from 2003, gallery-framed Julian Gilbert Opie, born 1958 in London, British painter, sculptor and video artist, shown here: “Woman taking off man’s shirt”, colour silkscreen print, 100 x 60 cm, published by the K21 Art Collection of North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf, in excellent condition, gallery-framedAbout the artist: Julian Opie studied at Goldsmiths College in London from 1979 to 1982; he held his first exhibition of his works in 1983 at Nicholas Logsdail’s Lisson Gallery in London. In his portrait series, begun in 1997, he uses a computer programme to reduce the facial features to their essentials using black contour lines, without losing the characteristic individuality of the person depicted. A well-known example of these portraits is the cover design for an album by the British band Blur (*Best of Blur*). In more recent works, such as this one, Opie introduces movement into these reduced depictions of people as a new element. A surrealist effect arises from the lack of spatial depth in the depiction. In 2005, the rock band U2 featured a walking figure by Julian Opie as an LED display in their stage show during their Vertigo Tour. Opie gained widespread international recognition through his participation in documenta 8 in 1984; numerous exhibitions in renowned galleries and museums followed, including the 1993 Venice Biennale, the Lenbachhaus in Munich in 1999, Tate Britain, London, in 2000; the K21 Art Collection of North Rhine-Westphalia in Düsseldorf in 2003; and inter alia 2004-2005.