Australian Wood Duck
Signed Mixed Media

Australian Wood Duck is one of five artworks in Opie’s Small Birds collection. Each artwork depicts a different bird, with the other prints showing a pigeon, gull, hen and magpie. The production of this collection accompanied Opie’s largest LED based public artwork to date which the artist made for the National Gallery Victoria Triennial. Australian Birds was a series of continuous computer animated birds that Opie situated on a grass strip between two lanes of traffic in central Melbourne, Australia.

As well as birds, Opie has taken artistic inspiration from a range of other animals such as sheep, fish and horses. The artist’s works are immediately recognisable due to the way in which Opie depicts simplified forms using thick lines filled with a solid, flat colour. Opie’s style is influenced by Minimalism and Pop Art and artists like Andy Warhol clearly had a significant impact on the development of Opie’s visual language.