The world portrayed by Julian Opie is one of generic landscapes and cityscapes – images reduced to their most basic elements, signifying only a general classification of environment. Figures, animals or buildings, if they appear at all, are similarly archetypal models, mere devices to denote ‘type’. And yet, once decoded, these seemingly lifeless views or bland forms, portrayed in flat colour on a two-dimensional plane or a three-dimensional block, succeed in evoking an identifiable atmosphere, suggesting narrative and even movement. The view of a roadway meandering off into the low horizon in Landscape (1) provokes the memory or image of a journey, moving across a rural landscape in an aeroplane as its prepares to land.

> Landscape, The British Council 2000