Over more than three decades, Catherine 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.
Catherine Opie's Chloe (1993) © Catherine Opie, courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles; Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, London, and Seoul; Thomas Dane Gallery
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.
Catherine Opie's Untitled, from Freeway series (1994) © Catherine Opie. Courtesy Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London
And that visibility is manifest not just in the portraiture for which Opie is best known, but also in the central place that architecture and interiors play in her work. She repeatedly calls our attention to the juxtaposition of the built environment and the construction of bodies and identities.
Catherine Opie's Untitled #3 (Norway Mountain) (2024) © Catherine Opie. Courtesy Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London
Opie documents her surroundings in the fullest sense: she depicts the people she loves, knows and meets; the spaces they occupy; and the broader physical and social environment around them. Ultimately, she hopes, through encountering her art, viewers will gain a better understanding of humanity in all its complexity.
Catherine Opie's Blood Grid #1 (2023) © Catherine Opie. Courtesy Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London
Opie reflects on her early discovery and desire to make pictures, aged nine, and the key figures that helped her choose to become an artist. She talks about the kinship between poetry and art and the fundamental importance, whatever her subject, of human connection. She reflects on artists as diverse as Holbein and Leonardo and Gerhard Richter and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, on the influence of writers including Joan Didion and Octavia Butler, and on her admiration for Chloe Zhao and Chris Marker. Plus, she gives insights into her life in the studio (and darkroom) and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?
• Catherine Opie: To Be Seen, National Portrait Gallery, London, 5 March-31 May 2026; Catherine Opie: The Pause that Dreams Against Erasure, The Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, 19 July 2026.
This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the arts and culture platform. Bloomberg Connects offers access to a vast range of international cultural organisations through a single click, with new guides being added regularly. They include several museums in which Catherine Opie has had recent solo exhibitions, including, in the US, Lacma and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, and, in the UK, the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and the National Portrait Gallery in London, the venue for Catherine’s exhibition, To Be Seen, between March and May, 2026. Explore Bloomberg Connects and you will find a feature on that show on the guide when the exhibition opens. Meanwhile, you can also discover the National Portrait Gallery’s other exhibitions, including Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting, until 4 May 2026. The audio guide to the exhibition includes excerpts from a previously unreleased interview with Freud, along with contributions from his daughter Bella Freud, from his assistant in the studio and model for several works, David Dawson, and from the curator of the exhibition, Sarah Howgate.
