My article on Peter Doig’s exhibition at Tate Britain has been published by Bohemian Aesthetic. See below:
Peter Doig: in the footsteps of Gauguin?
It’s not often I’d walk away from an artist’s work; and if I do, I try to return to it or I find ways for it not to affect me. In fact, Doig’s work is difficult for me to ignore, and I’ve been at a loss to explain this to myself. I can only do so by trying to recall the wise words of one of my lecturers at film school, the legendary Laura Mulvey, who makes the point to always look for something good in a work of art. In relation to Doig’s work, I’m still looking. Maybe one day I’ll understand it.
Walking in the footsteps of Gauguin (if, indeed, that’s what Doig is doing), his Trinidad series doesn’t share the same terrain—that of intimacy and compassion. Instead, the paintings appear to be distant and cold, murky, entering the filmic realms. But that’s not Doig’s intention; he says, “people often say that my paintings remind them of particular scenes from films or from certain passages from books, but I think it’s a different thing altogether. There is something more primal about painting.” But the fact remains that Doig’s work does resemble still frames from motion pictures. His “Rasta in the Thicket in Trinidad” could easily be a shot out of Predator.
Click here to read this article in full.
Published by the kind permission of Bohemian Aesthetic eZine
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