New York Couple 1, 2019

Julian Opie is a British artist widely known for his highly recognizable and stylized animated walking figures, depicted with minimal detail, bold black outlines and a reduced color palette. His body of work usually features human forms reduced to schematic blocks of vivid colors in constant motion, creating digital portraitures. Julian Opie has developed his signature aesthetic across a variety of media and materials, such as prints, sculptures and digital installations. His works incorporating LED technology have been commissioned by internationally renowned musicians and art performers.

New York Couple 1 portrays a couple walking alongside each other in high sync, in what could be the end of the day walk towards home. The couple, carrying bags and checking their phones, have been immortalized in their everyday shared ritual, freshened up by the use of a warm and harmonious yellow background. The artist fascination for motion, and concretely for walking people, explores the relation between visual and spatial observation. The minimal and graphic aesthetic, rendered almost primitive by using thick black outlines and flat colors, makes this piece a distinctive exemplar of the artist’s unique sensibility.