cowbells tractor silence

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Whitehall

This print is one of a series of eight that the artist, Julian Opie produced on photographic paper. The images were produced by digitally manipulating the photographs he took of these scenes, often by emptying the images of detail and blocking in areas of flat colour. The image titles are simple lists of three sounds that Opie heard at the time he took the photographs. Opie’s work at the turn of the century often simulates the landscape of computer games, a relatively new genre at that time, or children’s books. He creates, in these works, a symbolic and de-personalised landscape based on a real one, offering his viewers a familiar, yet also an alien world to interact with and create their own journey within. 

Opie has often talked about ideas of commodification and of offering a product to his viewers to tailor to their own experience. While these landscapes of Opie’s offer a visual experience in the scene they portray, they also rely on the verbal through the list of sounds that they communicate, encouraging the viewer to bring both elements together in a way that resonates with their own experiences. Opie once said: ‘what I would really like to do is to make a painting and then walk into it.’ He expanded on this later on stating: ‘ I think my work is about trying to be happy. I want the world to seem like the kind of place you’d want to escape into. Mundane things are just as exciting as all the things you might imagine escaping into.’  

Julian Opie was born in London where he still lives and works. He studied at Goldsmiths College, London from 1979 to 1982. He has received many commissions for his work: in 2000 he produced portraits of the pop band Blur for their album. He has exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally over the last four decades and his work is held in many important collections including Tate, Arts Council Collection and the National Portrait Gallery in the UK.

Places

Subjects

landscape C20th, mountain, field, telegraph pole, house

Materials & Techniques

acrylic sheet, digital print, lambda print

Artist

Julian Opie (1958 - )

Title

cowbells tractor silence

Edition

29/40

Date

2000

Medium

Lambda print laminated to acrylic sheet

Dimensions

height: 74.00 cm, width: 110.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Alan Cristea Gallery, January 2001

Inscription

verso: Julian Opie / 29/40

Provenance

Alan Cristea Gallery, London

GAC number

17532