Rain, Voices, Surf, 2000

Much of Opie’s work of the late 1990s simulates the symbolic landscape of computer games and children’s picture books, encouraging the viewer to journey into a simultaneously familiar yet alien world. The images portrayed in Julian Opie´s Eight Landscapes were created from photographs taken by the artist in a range of urban and natural environments. Opie scanned the photographs onto a computer and altered them digitally. His alterations involve emptying the images of detail by blocking in areas of flat colour. This results in generalised images of landscapes. The image titles are simple lists of three sounds Opie heard at the time he took the photograph.  Opie’s Eight Landscapes thus bring together two kinds of language, one visual and one verbal. Both depend on the viewer’s personal memories and resonances to enrich the experience of the work.