Catherine Opie

Catherine Opie
Born	1961 Sandusky, Ohio
Nationality	American
Education	San Francisco Art Institute, California Institute of the Arts
Known for	Photography

Catherine Opie (born 1961 in Sandusky, Ohio) is an American fine-art photographer. Growing up in a rather Suburban area of Rancho Bernardo, close to San Diego, Catherine Opie came to terms with her lesbian sexuality in high school, but it took her some time to come to grips with it. The artist grew up with two older siblings, in what she stated to be a "proper family." The artist's father was a conservative Republican, challenging Opie to feel a sense of acceptance in her family. It was not until later on in her life that Catherine became comfortable enough with her sexual identity and sense of self. In the early 80s, Catherine relocated to San Francisco, bridging the gap between her difficult childhood, further understanding her identity. She studies the relationships between mainstream and infrequent society, with a large emphasis on sexual identity, specializing in portraiture, studio, and landscape photography. Through photography Opie documents the connections between the individual and the space inhabited. She lives and works in West Adams, Los Angeles. She is well known for her work of portraits exploring the Los Angeles leather-dyke community. Opie is currently a professor of photography at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

Opie was influenced early in life by photographer Lewis Hine. At the age of nine she received a Kodak Instamatic camera, immediately capturing her family and community. Opie spent her early childhood in Ohio, but her family moved near San Diego when she was 13 years old. She studied childhood education for a year as an undergraduate, but soon went to the San Francisco Art Institute to earn her bachelor of fine arts degree. The artist became involved in the leather community in her twenties, finding her niche. Opie stated that she was intimidated immediately, but over time came to understand that her thought process in relation to what she was experiencing was only adopted thought and behavior from her youth, and what she had been taught. For Opie, the leather scene was about community. The artist, at the time of discovering the leather scene, was a student at the San Francisco Art Institute; Catherine was photographing the social documentary path at the time. Opie did not begin to channel her sexuality or the leather scene until after graduating from Cal Arts. It was then, that the artist began to channel the most private and enriching part of her work: her sexuality and the leather scene. She completed a Masters of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts in 1988. Her thesis project Master Plan (1986–88) examined the planned communities of Valencia, California, from construction sites and advertisement schemes, to homeowner regulations and the domestic interiors of residents' homes. In 1988 Opie moved to Los Angeles, California and began working as an artist, supported herself by accepting a job as a lab technician at the University of California, Irvine. Opie and her companion, painter Julie Burleigh, constructed working studios in the backyard of their home in South Central Los Angeles.

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