Opie has regularly explored ways in which a motif can be pared down to its essence and yet remain recognisable not only in generic terms, but also in terms of retaining an identifiable individuality. His images of people - as portraits or figure studies - are drawn by him on a computer, using photographs of real people he has taken himself, in the process reducing each to its characteristic essentials described by a solid even black lines and a graphic language of basic symbols.

This is a Lambda print which has been overlaid with lenticular plastic, so that different views of the image are visible as the viewer shifts his/her position in relation to it. The first step in making a lenticular print is to prepare two or more images (here Opie has used three) which must be the same size, and using a computer program, cut them into narrow strips and interlace them in strict sequence. If, as here, the artist wants three views (also known as ‘flips’) then the first strip is taken from image 1, the second from image 2, the third from image 3, and then the fourth from image 1, and so on. It is this interlaced image which will be printed and then mounted behind a lenticular lens screen. This is a sheet of plastic on which a series of cylindrical lenses (or lenticules) have been moulded in parallel rib-like columns. Each of the lenses has a focal length equal to the thickness of the clear plastic sheet from which it has been moulded. Each lencticule thus magnifies one of the strips behind it. If you change your angle of view, then the strip which is being magnified also changes, creating an illusion of animation.

Opie's Sara enacts a passive striptease as we watch. She belongs to a long tradition of representing the female body - and especially the female nude - in the history of art. The female body itself is an instantly recognisable motif, so familiar that it can serve as the site for experiments with form and modes of representation.