“I often feel that trying to make something realistic is the one criteria I can feel fairly sure of. Another one I sometimes use is, would I like to have it in my room? And I occasionally use the idea, if God allowed you to show him one thing to judge you by, would this really be it?” Julian Opie‘s highly distinctive depictions of the modern world are created in an extraordinary variety of media. His bold portraits, subtle landscapes, unconventional wallpaper, playful sculptures of animals, buildings and cars, computer films and much more present simplified and iconic versions of the contemporary environment. In a richly-illustrated interview ranging from his cut-metal sculptures of the early 1980s to the cool minimalism of his cover art for the best of blur CD, Julian Opie reflects on his ways of working, on exposing art in unconventional surroundings, on his sense of the world around him, and on his use of computers which today allow him not to have to construct any of his artworks in the traditional way.