Julian Opie | Natalie Walking | 2016

Julian Opie has been making art work rooted in the world around him—buildings, animals, places, and people—for over three decades. His paintings, sculpture, video, and “moving” portraits draw from ancient Egyptian portraiture, Japanese woodblock prints, Old Master portraits, public signage, and 1960s Pop Artists such as Patrick Caulfield and Roy Lichtenstein. He balances realism and abstraction while using new and traditional technologies to challenge those traditions. 

Opie explores the unique rhythms of the city through his animated light box works like Natalie Walking, 2016. In his trademark style, Opie captures the way we present ourselves to the world—the tilt of the head for attitude, the donning of clothes to express aspiration or social-economic status, the accoutrements to show profession or affiliation. He acknowledges what is common about humans but preserves what is unique in each.

Natalie Walking shows a young woman wearing a fashionably youthful short skirt, her hair in a tight bun that suggests control. We build our own narrative about Nathalie; she is a purposeful woman who is serious about her life but playful about her wardrobe. By placing Natalie outdoors the viewer asks: do young women feel safe in public space? How do we gaze at total strangers walking through the city? Can clothing truly be individual, or, as we learned in The Devil Wears Prada, how much are we shaped by the decisions and choices of others?

For a recent exhibition in New York, the artist revealed that he has been concerned with the homogenization of our cities through globalization. Although the internet has allowed us to expand to sample the world and “curate” our own lives and spaces, the corporatization of our public spaces, clothing, vacation, and lifestyle choices shows we still choose from a pre-existing menu. We are simultaneously trying to create a unique self while panicked by “f.o.m.o.”—fear of missing out—that prompts us to conform to what is trending. Opie fights the drive for sameness through the small nuances of his figures.

Opie uses the technology of life-size light boxes so his characters stand out in different climactic conditions—in the fog of morning, the bright glare of high noon, in the shadowy colors of dusk, or the tinted midnight sky. The artist has said “We use vision as a means of survival and it’s essential to take it for granted in order to function, but awareness allows us to look at looking and by extension look at ourselves and be aware of our presence.