Room guide: Room 8
Doig’s latest paintings show the strong influence of Trinidad’s island landscape even if, as always, his subjects are an amalgam of unrelated visual sources. The search to establish a unique mood for each painting remains constant; however, Doig now achieves this by different means. The artist has experimented with viewpoints that open up new forms of composition, recently taking photographs through a telescope, and kayaking around the rugged north coast of the island.
In these paintings the motif is often seen from a distant viewpoint across a shore or from the other side of a river. The artist’s eye and imagination is increasingly drawn to a strangeness of form that has an abstract, primal quality — and the staining paint effects conjure up gossamer-like images.
Other works from this room:
Black Curtain, Towards Monkey Island 2004
Oil on linen 200 x 275 cm
Mima and César Reyes collection, Puerto Rico
Figures in Red Boat 2005-7
Oil on linen 250 x 200 cm
Private Collection
Man Dressed as Bat 2007
Oil on linen 300 x 350 cm
Private Collection
Man Dressed as Bat (Embah) 2004
Oil on canvas 23 x 17 cm
Courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, New York and Cologne