Julian Opie (Past Project)

Walking in the City.project 1, 2013
Walking in the City.project 2, 2013

18' 2" x 25' 7"
18' 2" x 25' 7"
Holly and David Bruce; Sharon and David Wax - Wall Sponsors

The people featured in Julian Opie's mural, Walking in the City, were drawn from the streets of London, where a view of pedestrian London life has been transported to the La Jolla neighborhood of Bird Rock. He began this series of “walking figures” by photographing strangers on the street – people who are busy and walking. This artwork is double-sided and can be viewed when traveling both north and south through this pedestrian neighborhood.

With public commissions from Shanghai to New York, Tokyo to Zurich and a steady flow of museum exhibitions internationally, the work of Julian Opie is known throughout the world. Opie’s distinctive formal language is instantly recognisable and reflects his artistic preoccupation with the idea of representation, and the means by which images are perceived and understood. Always exploring different techniques both cutting edge and ancient, Opie plays with ways of seeing through reinterpreting the vocabulary of everyday life; his reductive style evokes both a visual and spatial experience of the world around us. Taking influence from classical portraiture, Egyptian hieroglyphs and Japanese woodblock prints, as well as public signage, information boards and traffic signs, the artist connects the clean visual language of modern life, with the fundamentals of art history.

Major public projects include Fosun Foundation, Shanghai; Atlice Forum Braga, Portugal; Tower 535, Hong Kong; Carnaby Street, London; Takamatsu City, Japan; PKZ, Zurich; the Mori Building, Japan; River Vltava, Prague and Dublin City Gallery, Ireland. His works are featured in many permanent collections including the National Portrait Gallery and Tate, London; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Essl Collection, Vienna and National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. Opie lives and works in London, England.

Photos by Philipp Scholz Rittermann