A brush with... Catherine Opie

A brush with... Catherine Opie

From A brush with... by The Art Newspaper

February 18, 2026 · 1h 14m · Season 32 · Episode 2

About this episode

Catherine Opie discusses her artistic influences and the exploration of identity in her work.

Catherine Opie talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work. Over more than three decades, Opie, who was born in 1961 in Sandusky, Ohio, and lives today in Los Angeles, has created photographic portraits, cityscapes and landscapes that have borne witness to social and political conditions and tensions—particularly in her native United States—while also reflecting a deeply personal response to people and community. Fundamental to her work is an exploration, as a queer woman and as a documentarian photographer, of the nuanced, multifarious nature of identity, most prominently in LGBTQ+ communities, but also far beyond them. She has committed from her earliest mature images to the idea that, as she has phrased it, “Without representation, there is no visibility”—a belief that remains more vital than ever in the US and across the world in the 2020s. And that visibility is manifest not just in the portraiture for which she is best known, but also in the central place that architecture and interiors play in her work. She repeatedly calls our attention to the…

People in this episode

Host: Ben Luke

Guest: Catherine Opie

Topics covered

  • identity
  • LGBTQ+ communities
  • photography
  • cultural influences
  • representation
  • social conditions

Keywords

  • Catherine Opie
  • photography
  • LGBTQ+
  • identity
  • representation
  • social issues
  • art

Mentioned in this episode

Places: United States, Sandusky, Ohio, Los Angeles

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