Ruth Smoking. 1 is an example of Julian Opie's ability to reconstruct reality through his unmistakable and universal style. The artist uses a dynamic vocabulary of lines and perspective to render playful figures on flat backgrounds. In the present lot, the woman, rendered in a seductive, but also cartoon-like, fashion, is brought to life through the repetition of cyclical movements, capturing the viewer's attention with through an almost hypnotic action. Opie's work remains a contradiction-on one hand purposefully flat and object-like and, at the same time, more life-like than any traditional art object.