JULIAN OPIE, WOMAN TAKING OFF A MAN’S SHIRT IN FIVE STAGES, SIGNED SCREEN PRINT, EDITION OF 80, 2004
Julian Opie’s Woman Taking Off A Man’s Shirt In Five Stages is a screen print from 2004 that shows an image of a half-dressed figure in a sequence of static poses, taking off an oversized shirt. Opie renders the model in his graphic, linear style, reduced to a clear-cut outline of torso and limbs, circle for a head and two curved lines for breasts.
Using computer-drawing programmes to complete his works, Woman Taking Off A Man’s Shirt In Five Stages is indicative of Opie’s desire to find a standardised version of the human figure. The artist’s depictions of nude figures relate to imagery used on the signs of lavatory doors for example, and Opie combines this kind of imagery with a digital photograph of a real person to create the resulting image.
Charged with an explicitly sexualised tone this print is dynamic in its sequential composition. By placing the figures next to one another in differing poses from left to right, the viewer's eye follows the print as the figure removes her dress. The composition provides the static print with a sense of movement and motion that injects realism into the graphic print. For Opie, movement itself is a form of realism in relation to the human form.
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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.
