Mary Adam

How does Peter Doig transform seemingly ordinary photographs into fascinating large paintings?

Introduction

Peter Doig is one of the world's leading contemporary artists. He paints large landscapes which border on the ordinary but which have a haunting mysteriousness or strangeness about them. He works from photographs, yet the paintings are not at all photorealist. Somehow in his process he transforms an ordinary dull photo into a large fascinating memorable original painting. How and why does the transformation come about? This is the question that most intrigues me about Peter Doig.

In an attempt to find answers, I studied monographs, criticism, published interviews, video interviews, and paintings from reproductions; and did numerous contextual sketches and analyses (Appendix I). I also studied an original painting (Blotter (1993) in the Walker Gallery in Liverpool), and saw Music of the Future (2002-7) when it was shown in Trinidad in 2006.

I have approached the study first through formal analysis of Doig’s work, followed by an examination of his process, and a comparison of two paintings with their reference photographs. I then examine his subject matter and discuss two of the Trinidad paintings, followed by a discussion of his use of figures in landscape. This is followed by a general discussion and conclusions.