Cathy's Art Diary

Colourful exhibition at the Alan Cristea Gallery of new work by Julian Opie. I loved the variety of work in this show although all very typical of Opie. On the ground floor were some lovely landscapes of coastal scenes, digital prints in blocks of colour. These sat alongside six banners of scenes from South Korea. I loved some small sculptures of tower blocks shown in groups of five which were clear and effective with a real sense of the light bouncing off the windows using a limited colour palette. As you headed downstairs you were greeted by a lovely set of relief panels of people on a street with titles based on their accessories such as headphones, cardigan etc. These were shown against relief panels on the wall of people walking in Melbourne. My favourite pieces though were outline portraits which just named the people by their trade such as librarian, mechanic etc. They got across a sense of a look and personality in a minimal number of lines however when you look...

Nice exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of works by Julian Opie which pick up themes and styles from the Van Dyck self-portrait which is shown In the same gallery. This is one of a series of displays in response to the gallery acquiring the self-portrait. Opie distils images down to their key points which still making it possible to read a likeness. In these pictures we see a similar pose to the self-portrait and similar lighting. There were two of his LCD animations including one called George where the head turns from side to side and the shade changes across his face. There were two more abstract pictures where the figure was paired down to circles and squares. I loved a paired down picture of a girl with a pony tail which I didn’t understand and saw it as abstract shapes until saw it reflected in another picture of the same girl which I hope I have captured in this picture. A very clever hang. Closes on 7 January 2018