Peter Doig
Many of Doig's paintings are landscapes, somewhat abstract, with a number harking back to the snowy scenes of his childhood in Canada. He draws inspiration for his figurative work from photographs, newspaper clippings, movie scenes, record album covers and the work of earlier artists like Edvard Munch.
EXPLORING THE SUBLIME THROUGH SKI IMAGES
Many of Doig's paintings are landscapes, somewhat abstract, with a number harking back to the snowy scenes of his childhood in Canada. He draws inspiration for his figurative work from photographs, newspaper clippings, movie scenes, record album covers and the work of earlier artists like Edvard Munch. His landscapes are layered formally and conceptually, and draw on assorted art historical artists, including Munch, H. C. Westermann, Friedrich, Monet and Klimt. While his works are frequently based on found photographs (and sometimes on his own) they are not painted in a photorealist style. Doig instead uses the photographs simply for reference. In a 2008 interview, Doig referred to his use of photographs and postcards as painting "by proxy" and noted that his paintings "made no attempt to reflect setting".
Doig has had major solo exhibitions at Tate Britain (2008), touring to Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt,[16] Dallas Museum of Art (2005), Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2004), Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht (2003), and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1998).[17] Doig's first major exhibition in his home country was entitled No Foreign Lands, taking place in the Scottish National Gallery, in Edinburgh, from 3 August to 3 November 2013. It was critically acclaimed and showed works created in the previous ten years, mostly during his residence in Trinidad.[18] The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, in collaboration with the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, presented his own exhibition, the first major held in North America, from 25 January to 4 May 2014. A retrospective opened at Fondation Beyeler, Basel, in 2014, which travelled in 2015 to Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark. Also in 2015, an exhibition of recent works opened at Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice, Italy, coinciding with the 56th Venice Biennale. Recently his work was included in the group exhibition Cooperations at Fondation Beyeler (2017).[19] From 6 September to 16 November 2019, Michael Werner Gallery has hosted an exhibition of new paintings by Peter Doig.
A collection that marks the artist’s first return to snowscapes since the 1990s, ‘Zermatt’ is also Doig’s first thematic group of works. The series was conceived in 2018, when Swiss architect and artist Heinz Julen offered Doig his chalet in the idyllic resort town as an artistic prompt to paint his surroundings. Compositionally and conceptually, Doig was inspired by ski posters designed to attract people to the mountains. Characterized by a delicate balance of dynamic skiers and majestic, snow-covered landscapes, simple yet enticing, the images prompted Doig to produce his own series of painted posters.
