JULIAN OPIE, NEW YORK COUPLE 3, NEW YORK COUPLE SERIES, SIGNED SCREEN PRINT, EDITION OF 55, 2019
New York Couple 3 is a screen print from Julian Opie’s New York Couple series (2019) that shows two full-length figures in profile walking in opposing directions. Despite their featureless faces these two figures are depicted with distinct characteristics like their hair and colourful clothing, producing an image of individual types.
Showing the figures mid-motion as they walk, New York Couple 3 exudes a sense of movement through the static image, capturing the idea of moving through a city centre. Characteristic of many of Opie’s figurative works, movement injects realism into the highly stylised graphic print. For Opie, movement itself is a form of realism in relation to the human form.
Throughout his career, Opie has produced many images of people walking in the form of static prints, paintings, sculpture, and moving images. Using photographs taken by the artist, each print is then manipulated and reduced to a matter of simplified shapes and signs to represent a figure. Speaking of his depictions of people from photographs taken in public, Opie has said, “Each figure throws up surprises and opportunities that I could not invent – a tattoo or a tasselled dress, a goatee or the logo on a T-shirt.”
Read more about the New York Couple series by Julian Opie.
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.
