Peter Doig

A meditation on the inherent dangers of the alpine landscape, ‘Lost’, the third print in Peter Doig’s ‘Zermatt’ (D1, 2022), uses Doig’s characteristic cartoonishly bright colours to disguise the horrific narrative behind the image. Facing out towards the viewer, hands raised and cupped around their eyes, a lone skier seems to stand in this snowy alpine landscape in search of help. The long, stretched shadow of the figure gives the impression of the fading day and of time running out. Despite being clad in bright orange, the helicopter rescue in the distant sky above appears not to see the skier, evoking the notion of screaming but not being heard. 

With its background narrative of disappearance, ‘Lost’ recalls Doig’s ‘Echo Lake’ (1998). Similarly based on stacked bands of colour overlaid with sparse detail, this earlier painting includes the common motifs of a lone figure and a search vehicle, while the title suggests a similar fruitlessness to the search so far. Indeed, the skier mimics the very stance of the figure in ‘Echo Lake’, who is shown with their hands raised to their eyes to hold binoculars, perhaps evoking Doig’s practice of repurposing figures and imagery across his work.  

The uneasy otherworldliness of ‘Lost’ plays against the poster format of the work, turning the idea of the tourist board advertisement on its head to subvert the usual narratives of beautiful scenery and a good time to be had by all. Now more a missing persons poster, translated from paint into print for the ‘Zermatt’ series, Doig’s image enters into a wider circulation, spreading the word about this lost figure and the dangers of the mountains.

Lost

Zermatt

A meditation on the inherent dangers of the alpine landscape, ‘Lost’, the third print in Peter Doig’s ‘Zermatt’ (D1, 2022), uses Doig’s characteristic cartoonishly bright colours to disguise the horrific narrative behind the image. Facing out towards the viewer, hands raised and cupped around their eyes, a lone skier seems to stand in this snowy alpine landscape in search of help. The long, stretched shadow of the figure gives the impression of the fading day and of time running out. Despite being clad in bright orange, the helicopter rescue in the distant sky above appears not to see the skier, evoking the notion of screaming but not being heard. 