Peter DOIG, Canoë-Island !

By selling Canoe Island,Expertissimpresents to its followers a serigraph whose recurring iconography is symbolic of the British artist Peter( born in 1959) Doig’s emerging work.

      

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Reading an image

 

The serigraph Canoe Islandis reminiscent of the painting 100 years agopainted in 2001.This is one of the artist’s most famous works and also the most enduring. Threeelements emerge from these two compositions: the canoe,  with pure forms inspired by the movie Friday the 13th;the islandrepresenting Trinidad Tobago; and thirdly the central character,photograph of the rock star Berry Oakley.This figure was chosen by the artist for his mystique,Christlike  and hippie aspects.It is not easy to recognize a man or woman in the obscurity of this serigraph! :"I try to stay pretty vague with expressions, contenting myself with the silhouette and body appearance more than the face."Thus, for Peter Doig, the character must be a universal symbolthat speaks to everyone: "What interests me is the archetypal aspect of that character."  The ambiguityextends with the water:is it a river,lake,sea?The character does not seem to move towards the island, more returning from it ?All these questions give the impression that no one can locate the place.Canoe Islandresembles a kind of non-placeor utopia!

 

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The composition of Canoe Islandlithography is based on Isle of the Dead,executed in five versions from 1880 to 1886, representing an island surrounding a forest in the dusk.Towards the bottom in a boat, there is a ghostly figure, a rower and a coffin.There are noted similarities and differencesbetween the work of Doig and Arnold Böcklin.Both are memento mori(Böcklin in the coffin, posthumous figure of Berry Oakley

in Doig’s work) against a background of islands that have nothing to do with  one  another.For what reasons?With Arnold Böcklinhis figures are heading towards the island while with Peter Doig, his subject moves away.  The attitudes of the characters give signification.The island is a sacred landfor the dead, while the other, seems to be the symbol of a lost world, pastand decadent!

 

The romance of a nostalgic landscape!

 

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With his stay in Canada, Peter Doig kept in memory the extentof the landscapes in which man is overwhelmed by its immensity.  This shock is a recurrencein art history from the Sanshui(landscape painting) Chinese SongDynasty (960-1279).Therefore, the landscape conveys the philosophicalvision of human futilityand its insignificanceagainst the natural forces.  Furthermore, Peter Doig has retained the art of Edward Hopper with its anxiety, solitudeand lack of lifeamong the dull yet dreamlikelandscapes that depict an America far from the successesof the "American dream", "self-made man" and Hollywoodglamour!  Across the spectrum of Edvard Munch,Peter Doig began to emphasize the psychological suffering, anxietiesand neurosesof man.  Canoe Islandillustrates the individual throesseen by its isolationin nature.Finally, the "primitivism"of the print composition, inspired by Rousseau's naive landscapes, allow Doig to easily transcribe human distress.

Expertissim offers a romantic landscape by Peter Doig revisited from integrated works with many constellations for the sole purpose of creating Canoe Island!: "I demand from earlier works not inspiration but help."

 

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FAGES Peter (étudiant à l’Ecole du Louvre).