JULIAN OPIE, RUTH WITH CIGARETTE 3, RUTH WITH CIGARETTE SERIES, SIGNED DIGITAL PRINT, EDITION OF 50, 2005
Ruth With Cigarette 3 is a print from Julian Opie’s Ruth With Cigarette series from 2005 that features a three-quarter length portrait of a woman, turned to face the viewer with her right hand lifted and dressed only in her bra. The figure, Ruth is an art collector living in Geneva who commissioned Opie to create the series of images.
Amidst a contemporary world saturated with information, Opie presents us with an image stripped down to the bare minimum components that make up a portrait. Using a standardised version of the human form, reminiscent of signs that can be found on lavatory doors, Ruth With Cigarette 3 is rendered in a decidedly depersonalised visual language. By presenting the figure without any facial features and a floating blank circle as a head, the figure appears more like a sign than an individual to be recognised.
Producing a computer generated image that uses flat, saturated colour and simplified shapes, Opie mimics the visual language of mass media and advertising. Ruth With Cigarette 3 also plays into this idea through depicting a stereotypical sexualised image of the ‘ideal’ woman as found in magazines, television and film. By rendering the figure without any facial features and a floating blank circle as a head, Opie forces the viewer to consider why they find this image so alluring and what constitutes attractiveness.
Read more about Ruth 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.
