The urban environment represents a particular focus for the artist Julian Opie. Borrowing idioms and images from everyday life, he re-interprets and plays with our notions of the ordinary. In ‘Escaped Animals’, Opie produced a series of thirteen road signs, each depicting an individual animal. Each animal, (including a fox, hedgehog, squirrel, sheep and cat) has been represented as an outline shape against a different coloured background. Opie’s work characteristically subverts a straightforward relationship with the familiar. Like real road signs, these images are designed to be read and understood instantly. Yet how should they be interpreted? Has the squirrel escaped? Are we being warned about the vulnerability of the animals? Should we be watching out? Five of these signposts belong to IMMA’s collection. The series was specially commissioned to coincide with the opening of the BALTIC Centre of Contemporary Art in Gateshead when four road signs from ‘Escaped Animals’ were erected in BALTIC square. At the same time, complementary groups of ‘Escaped Animals’ were commissioned by BALTIC for assemblage outside five other prestigious art galleries in the UK and Ireland; Arnolfini, Bristol; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; IMMA, Dublin; The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Tate Gallery, Liverpool and Tate Modern, London.