Julian Opie: ‘I’ve got a detailed plan for my death’

If you are feeling overwhelmed by criticism or self-doubt, don’t let that sway you. My mentor Michael Craig-Martin [the artist and painter] always said: “Fuck ’em!” Just focus on what you’re doing yourself. It tends to see you through.

I won an art prize with a bar of soap. I was always drawing as a kid. Aged 11, I’d forgotten about a school art competition until the last morning. I grabbed some soap and carved it into a kind of abstract 1950s-style Henry Moore or Barbara Hepworth shape, partly as a joke, but I won. I thought, “Wow, you can get away with this?”

My mum taught me how to look. My father taught me perseverance, to keep hammering away, to not ever give up. To misquote Shakespeare, I’m not naturally intelligent, but I sometimes am by chance.

The Best of Blur album cover was a turning point. The music world is 1,000 times bigger than the art world. Putting all four paintings together, slightly referencing The Beatles’ Let It Be, just worked. The National Portrait Gallery bought them. There were posters all around London. Being on buses is exciting.

I don’t read reviews. I still remember an awful write-up of my Hayward Gallery show in 1983 that rankled. And eavesdropping on people’s reactions is a dangerous game. I once sidled up to a guy in Bath who was standing in front of my work and heard him say, “It’s an absolute outrage that this has been put here.”

Work is like surfing. You paddle out, see a wave that looks good, then ride it. Do everything you can while you’ve got impetus because you’ll only be up there for a short while.

I’m a stickler for grammar. I pick up my staff on it, which I feel bad about. But if they’re writing emails out to the world, saying, “reaching out”, “jump on a Zoom call”, using exclamation marks, it’s justified.

Bryan Adams contacted me out of the blue and asked for a portrait. I went to his house and photographed him playing guitar. It ended up being a giant statue in Indianapolis. He paid me in music. I said, “Could you write me a short bit of repeatable music in a loop?” A while later he phoned and played me this amazing piece that made me cry.

Having children is like having a gang of friends. A supportive group of people all looking out for each other. I love that feeling.

Post-show blues is real. After an exhibition comes a horrible downer. You feel sucked dry.

Being alone (and maybe a touch bored) is restorative. I become much more aware of myself and my surroundings. That’s a key element to getting ideas.

I have nightmares about exhibitions going wrong. I’ll dream about a scrappy bit of cardboard fixed to the wall with sticky tape, covered in crayon scrawl and I’ll think, “Why did I show that? I’ve done much better work.” A horrible feeling.

I well up quite often. Mostly about my children, but films do it too. My wife teases me because we’ll sit on the sofa watching a movie and she can tell without looking that I’m crying.

I once stole a chicken. I was working in a chicken farm and thought I’d rescue one, but didn’t know what to do with it. You can’t release them into the wild. I ended up taking it back

Humans running at full pelt is an affecting sight. It reminds me of homo erectus chasing down antelope. It inspired my next project with the Team GB sprint team.

In the 1970s, people talked about art schoool as something losers did. “If all else fails, go to art school.” It was embarrassing to admit that’s what you actually wanted.

I’m horribly scared of sharks. I even get the fear in swimming pools. Weirdly, I swam with sharks in the Maldives. They were harmless, but it didn’t cure me. The idea of a dark presence coming out of the deep to eat me is still terrifying.

I’ve got a detailed plan for my death. I want an East End funeral with a black carriage pulled by four black horses with plumes. I’d like to make a spectacle of myself. I’ll definitely have a tombstone. I want to design it myself.

Julian Opie’s sculptures Charles. Jiwon. Nethaneel. Elena. 2024, are currently on show at 100 Bishopsgate as part of the 13th edition of Sculpture in the City, City of London, until 2025