Why is the Walking In Melbourne collection so important?

Julian Opie has produced various artworks of people walking through cities. Other notable collections include Walking In The Rain and Walking In London. Opie’s artworks are inspired by bustling cities such as New york, Seoul and London. The collection demonstrates Opie’s skill in conveying movement in static artworks and his ability to capture a snapshot of time. The prints in the Walking In Melbourne collection are dynamic and complex, permeated with an illusion of motion which capture the bustle of life in a big city.

How do I buy a Walking In Melbourne print?

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How can I sell my Walking In Melbourne print?

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Walking In Melbourne by Julian Opie Background & Meaning

Produced in 2018, Walking In Melbourne is a collection of ten prints produced by Julian Opie. The prints in this collection feature groups of faceless figures walking unassumingly through a city. Although Opie extracts the figures from their environment, replacing the cityscape background with a plain backdrop, thus removing any visual context as to their location, the viewer can infer from the titles of the prints that the people are walking through Melbourne.

The figures do not have faces however can be distinguished from one another from their outfits and the accessories they are holding. The urban clothing and objects the people are holding, such as phones, shopping bags and briefcases, are another indicator of the city setting of these artworks.

The figures in the Walking In Melbourne collection are rendered using thick coloured lines which are then filled with blocks of flat colour. This is a signature element of Opie’s visual language, along with his use of simplified shapes and bright colours. Opie’s artistic style is often compared to Roy Lichtenstein who is known for his comic book and cartoon imagery, as well as Patrick Caulfield and his use of bold outlines. Opie’s affinity with the screen printing technique and his reproduction of similar images of everyday scenes have also led to comparisons between his work and that of the famous Pop artist, Andy Warhol. While Warhol produced portraits of starts and notable icons like Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Elizabeth Taylor, alongside prints of everyday consumer goods, Opie prefers to depict ordinary people, as is seen in the Walking In Melbourne collection. Opie avoids depicting ‘iconic’ subjects who are instantly recognisable and instead privileges his immediate surroundings, taking inspiration from daily life and the quotidian. Opie’s artworks showcase mundane reality yet still retain an intriguing and captivating pull that seizes the viewer’s attention. The anonymous figures depicted in the Walking In Melbourne collection remind the viewer of the people they cross paths with everyday. Speaking about his representation of the everyday, Opie explains: “mundane things are just as exciting as all the things you might imagine escaping into”.

Julian Opie has produced various artworks of people walking through cities. Other notable collections include Walking In The Rain and Walking In London. Opie’s artworks are inspired by bustling cities such as New york, Seoul and London. The collection demonstrates Opie’s skill in conveying movement in static artworks and his ability to capture a snapshot of time. The prints in the Walking In Melbourne collection are dynamic and complex, permeated with an illusion of motion which capture the bustle of life in a big city.
Walking In Melbourne harks back to the artist's time visiting Australia. Opie’s father was born in Adelaide, South Australia, and the artist visited the country where his father grew up numerous times. Other artworks that were born out of his travels to Australia includes Australian Birds - Opie’s largest LED based public artwork to date. Australian Birds, which was installed in December 2020, features a series of continuous computer animated birds that Opie arranged on a grass strip between two lanes of traffic in central Melbourne, Australia. To make the artwork, Opie filmed pigeons, gulls, ducks, swamp hens, herons and ibis in Melbourne before being reduced and transformed into his graphic, visual language.
If you're looking to sell art by Julian Opie click the link and we can help. We employ a number of techniques and practices in order to give a realistic and achievable valuation on any art listed on myartbroker.com. We analyse the demand for the work in question, take into consideration previous sales and auction valuations, we assess the current gallery valuation and monitor the current deals taking place via MyArtBroker every day. We regularly advise sellers on a price bracket for their artwork completely free of charge.