Julien Opie at the Holburne, Bath

Julian Opie Collected Works

Great to come across this fantastic exhibition at the Holburne gallery in Bath during a visit in the summer.  Reading an extract from his book I had inadvertantly 'done' what he anticipated the viewer would do...stood looking at the LCD image, which then slightly moved...double take...moved in a bit closer and then looked around to see who else had seen this!! His pieces are so interesting and work so well as a contrast against his own collection of portraits.

 

Julian Opie: Collected Works continues a series of exhibitions at the Holburne exploring artists and their collections. One of this country's most important and successful contemporary artists this will be Opie's first one person exhibition in a UK museum for over ten years. Uniquely it will bring together his own works - including some previously unseen works - with pieces from his private art collection and explore the links and resonances between the two.  http://www.holburne.org/julian-opie-collected-works/

'Julian Opie's latest artworks don't just sit on the wall - they blink, rustle and make the sound of running water too' Susan Irvine -Telegraph

'We stand in front of a formal portrait of a woman, knee-length. Maria Teresa could almost have been drawn by Hergé, except that Tintin isn't quite so minimal. Tintin is two-tone, with flushed cheeks. Maria Teresa's face and body are an even, standard 'flesh' inside thick, black lines. Her nose is two dots. Her eyes are brown with two pinpoint reflections in each. As I examine them, they blink at me. Her dress is painted in a completely different, far more detailed style. Its crystal fringe sways every now and then. The sequins on it shimmer. Then the leaves of the cartoon-style rose she is holding rustle.

This is not, as you will have gathered, a portrait in oils. It is a custom-made LCD screen with a computer tucked in the back that operates an animation. 'These sparkles off here,' Opie says, pointing to her diamond and pearl earring, 'are slightly copied off Cinderella. You know when the prince holds out the shoe and it seems to have these effervescing sparkles? I was watching it with my daughter and I thought, "Yes."'

This is the first time Opie has experimented with bringing different styles of drawing together in one picture. He appears to be nudging our assumptions about which style we prioritise as more 'real'. Is it the hyper-real pearl bracelet on her wrist? Is it movement? The blinking is uncanny. It gives the cartoon eyes a presence that photographs rarely match. It also makes me want to laugh. It's as if the Queen were to wink at you from a stamp. A lot of Opie's work straddles an unusually drawn line between seriousness and humour' http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3561659/Julian-Opie-sounds-original.html

Throughout his career Opie has collected the art of the past including Japanese prints, seventeenth and eighteenth-century paintings and sculpture and more recently ancient sculpture from Egypt and the classical world. The exhibition will explore the relationship between Opie's enthusiasms and preoccupations as a collector of historic art with his concerns as an artist realised through his own completely contemporary vision.

Opie has been making portraits since the 1990s and has always responded and referred back to artistic traditions and historical practice. Works in a variety of media including paintings, prints, LEDs and video as well as more recent experiments in mosaic and sculpture will be shown together with works ranging from an ancient Egyptian funerary mask, portraits by Cornelius Johnson, Arthur Devis and Romney and a remarkable Houdon portrait bust of Gluck.