Inspired by Peter Doig

Scottish artist Peter Doig, born in 1959, spent a truly international childhood moving between the UK, the Caribbean (Trinidad) and Canada due to his father's employment with a commercial company in the 1960s. Doig received his training in London at the Wimbledon School of Art as well as Saint Martin's School of Art from 1980 to 1983. Half a decade later, Doig held a part-time job as a dresser at the English National Opera. In 2002, Doig moved back to the Trinidadian island, where he set up a studio at the Caribbean Contemporary Arts Centre near Port of Spain. A truly global artist, he also became professor at the Fine Arts Academy in Düsseldorf. 

Depicting distant places and familiar spaces, his compelling figurative work is tinged with mystery and a sense of distance and estrangement. This constant uprooting undoubtedly provoked feelings of displacement. Keen to emit a sense of comfort, Doig deliberately creates handmade works that have the appearance of home. Whilst providing a sense of warmth and welcoming, Doig's scenes also seem to be charged with a certain amount of anxiety. In depicting homes that are not his own, we are on the outside looking in. Many have compared his work to that of American artist Edward Hopper, whom Doig greatly admires. 

Doig has been recognized for his abstract landscapes, inspired by scenes from movies, winter scenes from his childhood in Canada and the work of artists such as Edvard Munch. His landscapes are layered formally and conceptually, and draw on assorted art historical artists, including Munch, H. C. Westermann, Friedrich, Monet and Klimt. While his works are frequently based on found photographs (and sometimes on his own) they are not painted in a photorealist style. In this collection, Artsper presents a selection of figurative landscapist works by promising contemporary artists, who are also inspired by the symbiosis of styles, layers and textures present in the photography of Peter Doig.