JULIAN OPIE, SHAHNOZA DANCING NAKED, SIGNED MIXED MEDIA, EDITION OF 45, 2008
Shahnoza Dancing Naked is a print by Julian Opie from 2008 that shows a moving image created with a lenticular panel. Opie depicts a full-length image of a young woman whose shape is delineated clearly by bold, black outlines. The figure is faceless, with only a blank circle as a head hovering over her shoulders, and she moves her hips from side to side with her left leg bent and hands behind her head.
Shahnoza Dancing Naked presents the viewer with a response to iconography found in the cultural mainstream, showing an anonymous image of the stereotypically ‘sexy’ woman. Opie’s figures are therefore in line with his landscapes and still lives that form a self-conscious representation of his idea that art feeds on art. Of this, Opie has said that his picture making “is a self-conscious circular type of activity… I make art looking at other art, looking at other things in the world that look like art, making things that look like art, making things that look like things that look like art.”
Notably, the subject of this print has been used multiple times by Opie over the course of a few years. In order to create the images of Shahnoza, Opie worked with the professional pole dancer for two days. Taking over 1,000 photographs on each day Opie used two video cameras simultaneously to capture her movements in real time.
Find out more about Shahnoza 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.
