Artwork
I dreamt I was driving my car (motorway corner)
I dreamt I was driving my car (motorway corner) is a print by Julian Opie. It dates from 2002 and is held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
About this work
Julian Opie made this print in 2002. It shows a road corner. Simple at first glance, yet it’s a print, not a painting.
Opie draws on computers over his own photos. He balances realism with a flat, clean look. This style grew from a 1993 road trip across Europe.
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Overview
Julian Opie’s 2002 print depicts a motorway corner, rendered in a stark, elongated format that mimics the view through a car windshield. The image’s minimal lines and flat colour fields give the impression of a photograph, yet the work is a digitally produced print rather than a traditional painting.
Subject & Meaning
The scene captures a moment of travel, echoing the artist’s own 1993 European road trip. By framing the road as a narrow, cinematic window, the work alludes to the road‑movie genre and its themes of escape, movement and the promise of a new destination.
Technique & Style
Opie begins with photographs he has taken himself, then traces and simplifies them on a computer. The process yields a balance between realistic detail and a graphic, formulaic aesthetic, drawing on visual vocabularies from advertising, video games and children’s illustration.
History & Provenance
Created in the early 2000s, the print belongs to a series that marks Opie’s shift toward digitally mediated imagery after his 1993 journey. It reflects his ongoing interest in public spaces—roads, airports, shops—where language appears as signage and visual cues.
Context
The work sits within a broader trend of late‑20th‑century artists who merge photography with digital drawing to explore the visual language of everyday environments. Its flat, screen‑like quality references both the automobile’s windshield and the cinema screen, linking personal travel with mass media.
Artist & collection
