Faime

I am always aiming for the minimum that tells the maximum. –Julian Opie

To create these portrait busts, Opie distilled recognizable features of people he observed on city streets into their sparest forms. Inspired by the basic universality of contemporary global lavatory signage, he also drew upon the flat profiles of ancient Egyptian reliefs, the partial form of antique Roman busts, and the graphic, colorful lines of twenty-first century Japanese Manga. These busts present individuals as potentially legible types. A student of conceptual artist Michael Craig-Martin’s in the 1980s, Opie developed an experimental, multimedia approach that drew from both Pop Art and Minimalism. In the 1990s, he began using computer software to synthesize photographs and signage into portraits serialized across media. In 2016, Faime featured in twelve artworks and Zhiyun appeared in three.