The Drifter: A conversation with the British painter
Peter Doig on his current exhibition "Metropolitain" in Munich's
Pinakothek der Moderne
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Metropolitain (House of Pictures),
2004 Courtesy Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin Photo: Jochen Littkemann
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In his paintings, melancholic figures meet with odd, ghostly
landscapes: Peter Doig is a master of atmosphere who continuously combines
art historical elements with impressions from the here and now. Harald
Fricke met with the British painter as he was preparing for his
exhibition in Munich.
On the morning before the opening of his
large one-person exhibition in the
Pinakothek der Moderne,
Peter Doig had a look around Munich's parks. In the process, he happened
upon a group of young surfers riding their boards in the rushing waters of
a rapids. Doig was impressed by the way the amateur athletes were pursuing
their love of nature in the midst of the big city - and quickly made a
series of photographs.
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Peter Doig at his exhibition
"Metropolitain", München 2004
Photo: Harald Fricke
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Presumably, some of these motifs will at some point
resurface in his paintings. The British painter has become famous for his
depictions of strangely desolate landscapes in which single individuals
appear somewhat lost in introspection. Removed from time, they are
melancholic
drifters par excellence, the lone wolves of lost epochs. Some of the
figures recall 19th-century
dandies, while others are styled after images of
hippies or rock musicians from the late sixties. Doig, who was born in
Edinburgh in 1959, is a master of atmosphere able to mobilize a minimum of
effort to conjure a mood of contemplation that threatens to slip over into
the sadness of isolation at any moment. Because of his approach, he has
often been associated with the
Romantic tradition and its yearning for the sublime, although he himself
sees connections of another sort entirely. French
Impressionism fascinates him because of its concentration of light and
color; naturalism
serves him through its precise portrayal of everyday situations as a
source of inspiration; while what he loves about
Matisse is the rhythm of line and contour that always makes his figures
dance.
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Grand Riviere II, 2002
Deutsche
Bank Collection
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In combining all these elements while lending them his own unmistakable
signature, Doig has become a prime example of the
post-modern painter who uses history as a rich source of material to
create his own view of reality. He was already nominated for the British
Whitechapel Award in 1991, followed by exhibitions in the
Victoria Miro Gallery and Berlin's
Contemporary Fine Arts. At the very latest since his nomination for
the
Turner Prize in 1994, Doig has counted among the true international
stars of contemporary art, even if he prefers to work in quiet reclusion,
in contrast to his
Young British Artist colleagues. This is why he moved from London to
Trinidad two years ago, where he had already spent a part of his
childhood. Evidently, the change in environment has also had an effect on
the reception of his paintings: he is already being compared to exiles
such as
Paul Gauguin, and his current paintings are being interpreted as a
return to the idyllic and to exoticism. This is a judgment destined to be
revised shortly, as soon as the first Munich surfers turn up on one of his
future paintings - despite all his love for faraway worlds, Doig is still
very contemporary, at home more in today's Hip Hop than in a revival of
the fin de siècle
, as I quickly discovered in conversation.
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