JULIAN OPIE, DISTANT MUSIC WATER TRAFFIC, EIGHT LANDSCAPES SERIES, SIGNED DIGITAL PRINT, EDITION OF 40, 2000
Distant Music Water Traffic is part of a series of prints by Julian Opie called Eight Landscapes from 2000. Each image in the series was mounted with sound systems, playing the sounds described by the title or digital LED panels displaying the words of the title one by one. An additional version of Distant Water Music has been made with flashing lights.
Created from photographs taken by the artist, then scanned and altered digitally, this print is void of detail and simplified through the use of block flattened colour. Opie thus produces a generic image of the landscape that strikes a sense of familiarity within the viewer. Titling the images with descriptions of sounds he heard whilst taking the photographs, Opie explained "Things in my experience don’t look photographic. When I recall the things I did in a day, for example, it’s not as a series of photographs, high resolution pictures. It’s a series of images which resemble symbols and signs. It’s like another language."
In simplifying Distant Water Music from the original photograph, Opie both draws from his personal experience but depersonalises the image to allow the viewer to create their own unique interpretation. Much of Opie’s work has been compared to the digitally rendered landscapes of video games in the way that they mimic a simultaneously familiar yet otherworldly sphere.
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ABOUT JULIAN OPIE
British artist Julian Opie challenges traditional approaches to portraiture through his digitally designed and seemingly contradictory, depersonalised works. Working also with landscapes and cityscapes, Opie’s highly stylised work involves the reduction of photographs or short films into figurative reproductions created using computer software. The hallmarks of his artistic style are portraits and animated walking figures, rendered with minimal detail in black line drawing. Learn more about Julian Opie.
