Blue Umbrella

This masterpiece is by Julian Opie, a leading contemporary British artist. It was displayed in late 2014 and early 2015 as part of an exhibition of the artist's work at the Museum of Modern Art in Cracow. 

The logo-like simplicity of Julian Opie’s portraits is inspired by the schematic outlines of the male and female silhouettes on lavatory signs. Using computer graphics, Opie begins with a digital photograph of a particular person and then superimposes it onto a lavatory sign. 

Focusing on the individual’s distinctive features and exposing those to the exclusion of all others, he succeeds in conveying the complexity of a human figure using only the most rudimentary lines and flat planes of colour. He says, "[…] my work isn’t about paring things down but about starting from something simple and building the image up until I achieve some kind of singularity." Regardless of the technique used, the image has the semantic power of a brand identifier: "I want it to be as if each person I draw were a multinational company with a logo." 

This work was presented in the Julian Opie exhibition “Sculptures, Paintings, Films” in the MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Crakow. In exhibitions such as this, MOCAK presents new works, the majority of which have been prepared especially for the exhibition in Cracow.