One of the most renowned contemporary artists, Peter Doig, who was born in 1959, in Scotland, was the central figure in the revival of painting in the contemporary art scene during the '90s. At present his oneiric landscapes are highly sought after by world-leading collectors and museums.

After a childhood spent in Trinidad and Canada, Doig only returned to Great Britain at the age of twenty in order to study art. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1994, which cemented his public recognition. Themes of magical realism are recurrent through Peter Doig’s paintings, capturing timeless moments of perfect tranquillity. Doig´s dreamlike depictions are often scattered with ghostly human traces in a sensuous palette.

Many of Doig's artworks are depicting landscapes, layered formally and conceptually, somewhat abstract, with a number harking back to the snowy scenes of his childhood lived in Canada. While his works are frequently based on found images (photographs, newspaper clippings, movie scenes, record album covers), they are not painted in a photorealistic. Doig instead uses the photographs simply for reference.
The canoes have become an inspiring image throughout his work; their reflection in the water is a fantasy mirror to the unknown. This inventive style, sensuous palette, and suggestive imagery are also maintained in Peter Doig’s prints through the mastery use of different printmaking techniques. Peter Doig is one of a number of pioneering contemporary figurative artists, and recent major solo exhibitions have been staged at institutional venues, including Fondation Beyeler, Basel; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montreal; Gallery Met at the Metropolitan Opera, New York; and Tate Britain, London. His auction record on the painting Rosedale, created in 1991 sold for over $28 million at Phillips New York in May 2017.

Art critic Jonathan Jones said about Doig: "Amid all the nonsense, impostors, rhetorical bullshit and sheer trash that pass for art in the 21st century, Doig is a jewel of genuine imagination, sincere work and humble creativity."

Peter Doig

Peter Doig’s serene, fantastical paintings feature kaleidoscope landscapes punctuated by enigmatic, partially obscured figures.

https://data.wengcontemporary.com/media/Peter_Doig_Untitled_Canoe_Content_Sheet_UPDATED_2023.pdf

The canoe is one of Doig’s most recurring images. In this aquatint, the canoe is part of a vague scenery of shadowlike figures in a foggy but yet colourful environment.

There are only silhouettes of the figures against the colourful sunset skies, and numerous questions arise: Who is the shadowy figure in the centre of the boat, is it a sword that he is holding? Why is there a flag bearing the cross of the Order of the Temple? Doig's characteristic message of a borderline experience: never trust your eyes, there could always be a hidden dimension behind what you are seeing.

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“ The figures almost disappear as you get closer. The paintings are very empty, in a way, but that’s the quality I like in my paintings and in other people’s paintings. „

—Peter Doig