JULIAN OPIE, STILL LIFE WITH YELLOW RED AND GREEN PEPPERS, STILL LIFE SERIES, SIGNED DIGITAL PRINT, EDITION OF 40, 2001
Working within the traditional art historical genre of still life painting, Still Life With Yellow Red And Green Peppers is a print by Julian Opie from 2001 that shows an image of six peppers against a stark, black backdrop. Opie uses this subject as a study of colour and tone, reducing light and shadow into simplified shapes of block colour in each pepper coloured with red, yellow and green.
Still Life With Yellow Red And Green Peppers is reminiscent of 17th century Dutch still life painting in its allusion to realism and starkly contrasted dark background. Indeed, Opie has been interested in engaging with the traditions of art history throughout his entire career, notably in his works A Pile of Old Masters (1983) and Eat Dirt, Art History (1983). With this print, Opie presents a twenty-first century version of the classic art historical genre through his use of computer technology, saturated colour and simplified form.
Engaging with canonical styles of art history, Opie demonstrates his interest not in representing reality but how reality is represented to the viewer. Still Life With Yellow Red And Green Peppers is also indicative of Opie’s claim that the artist and viewers of art will always be constrained by the principles and traditions of art history. Of this in relation to his work, Opie has said, "It was an acknowledgement of the hopeless position of the art student in light of art history, but also a rally call not to feel overwhelmed by it."
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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.
