Peter Doig

Peter Doig’s visionary paintings, works on paper and prints transform ordinary moments from life into enthralling compositions bursting with colour. His practice is in constant conversation with his itinerant lifestyle, resulting in images with suggestive narratives that are deeply embedded in the artist’s sense of place. Doig’s works are personal reflections on his life experiences and the world that surrounds him, drawing on memories and stories to construct relatable images.

Born in 1959 in Edinburgh, Doig’s early life was nomadic, spent across Trinidad, Canada and Britain. In 1979 Doig began his studies at Wimbledon School of Art, moving on to Central St. Martins for his BA before receiving his MA in 1990 from Chelsea College of Art. Whilst at Chelsea, Doig created what would become some of his most famous paintings, including ‘Milky Way’ (1989-90) – a superb work exemplifying his reverence for nature. Doig's highly representational style, self-described as “filmic” and infused with a sense of solitude, stood in sharp contrast to the conceptual and minimalist art that consumed his peers in London at the time.

After Chelsea, Doig’s output during the 1990s was exceptionally fruitful. His subject was often Canadian snowscapes, turning out generative works such as ‘Blotter’ (1993), ‘Ski Jacket’, (1994) and ‘Olin MK IV’ (1995-96). In 1991 he won the Whitechapel Young Artist Award, and in 1994 he was nominated for the Turner Prize.

In 2000, Doig won an artist residency in Trinidad and returned to the island for the first time since childhood. During this period, he resumed painting his immediate surroundings, in works like ‘Grande Rivière’ (2001-02), which depicts a place on the island where Doig stayed, and ‘100 Years Ago (Carrara)’ (2001), which shows a person in a canoe with the prison island of Carrara, just off the coast of Port of Spain, in the background.

In 2002, Doig moved his family to Trinidad, initiating a new phase in his career. Following his interests during his residency, he continued to draw upon his life and experiences on the island, as well as the history and sensibility of the country in his work. As is true across his practice, Doig used found images and photographs taken by himself as aids to produce his paintings, allowing him to capture specific details and convey certain atmospheres.

Since his move to Trinidad, Doig has worked across the world, including in New York and London, to produce images that are dream-like in quality and construction, joining real and imagined elements. The results are often ordinary and everyday scenes, such as a man walking with an umbrella in ‘Lapeyrouse Wall’ (2004) or a cricket game in ‘Paragon’ (2006), as well as somewhat fantastical visions, like a lion roaming outside the prison in Port of Spain in ‘Lion (Fire Down Below)’ (2019) or the Christ-like skier in ‘Holy Mountain’ (2021). In 2018, Doig began a series of trips to Zermatt, Switzerland, reviving his interest in snowscapes and making paintings that not only capture moments from his time in the resort town, but also feelings, observations and atmospheres.

Doig continues to produce works which function as the recordings of an acute observer. His thoughtful reflections on the everyday produce beautiful images that beg viewers to take a second look, and reconsider what we classify as mundane.