JULIAN OPIE

ULSAN ART MUSEUM, ULSAN, SOUTH KOREA
2 JULY – 5 OCTOBER 2026

Julian Opie is renowned for distilling figures and urban landscapes into simplified lines, colours, and forms, reinterpreting scenes from everyday life through his distinctive visual language. By stripping away facial details and complex backgrounds, he transforms his subjects into iconic, immediately legible images. Rather than emphasising the individuality of a specific subject, Opie’s visual language invites viewers to project their own experiences and identities onto the figures in his works. As a result, his figures move beyond individual portraiture, coming to embody both the anonymity of urban crowds and reflections of ourselves.

© Julian Opie

Installed in the outdoor space of Ulsan Art Museum, OTHER PEOPLE and 100 PEOPLE extend Opie’s artistic practice into the spatial realm. The vertical LED tower and the horizontally expanded media screen create a compelling contrast through their differing structures and modes of movement, while the recurring figures generate the rhythmic visual flow characteristic of Opie’s work.

© Julian Opie
© Julian Opie

The VR installation OP.VR/VENICE@ULSAN draws inspiration from the winding alleyways and canals of Venice, Italy. Upon wearing a VR headset, visitors enter a city reimagined through Opie’s visual language, moving through alleyways, bridges, and palaces as they physically navigate the work. Crossing the boundaries between reality and virtuality, image and space, the exhibition offers an immersive reflection on contemporary urban life and the ways we inhabit it.

FEATURED ARTIST

JULIAN OPIE
Julian Opie (b. 1958 in London, UK) lives and works in London, where he studied at Goldsmiths College under Michael Craig-Martin, graduating in 1983. Opie’s multidisciplinary practice spans painting, sculpture, animation, and digital media, focusing on themes of identity, movement, and the abstraction of the human form.

For over three decades, Opie has explored the intersection of the figurative and the abstract, becoming known for his iconic graphic portraits and stylized depictions of the human body, as well as buildings, animals and landscapes, both man-made and natural. His works distill complex human actions and figures into bol...
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