Julian Opie - Art is theft, Ctd

On the left a painting from Julian Opie's collection. The right is one of his own works called 'Maria Teresa with sequined dress'. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Mark Brown, the Guardian Arts correspondent spoke with Julian Opie. Julian explained how people perceptions don't match the reality behind the paintings of the masters:

"With old masters there is a slight tendency to go, ‘Wow, look at that amazing craft’, and it seems to be outside anybody’s imagination quite how the flowers are painted. But actually it was a fairly standardised system as to how to do cloth, how to do flesh and so on. People would have learned it in workshops.”

Mark brown said:

"Some visitors [to the exhibition] will be able to spot more direct connections. The blue curtains in a portrait of an unknown woman by Cornelius Johnson – a court painter to Charles I before Van Dyck – inspired the blue curtains in a 2008 Opie work, Maria Teresa with sequinned dress."

He then said:

"Opie said he often used the poses of sitters in old masters as templates for his own works."

He then explained how Opie works in a east London converted warehouse studio where his keeps his collected works on display. Opie said of this:

"I find myself feeding off them as I'm working. You never know what you need or will find, so I do learn a lot."

Article in full here. Opie's exhibition opening on Wednesday 21 May at the Holburne Museum in Bath. The exhibition sees the artist display examples of his own work from the past 20 years with works also from his private collection, as you can see from the image above.