From the underappreciated to the very-appreciated. I've been fascinated by the large scale appeal of
Peter Doig. He
commands large-scale sums, is already enshrined in institutions like the Tate, and was considered influential enough to be included as one of
Cream 3's 10 'source artists'. Yet he also seems to command considerable respect outside the art bubble. How so?
Barry Schwabsky wrote in
Art in America in May that
Doig insinuates that the image has a beyond-and that the image we encounter through painting is in this regard no different from the image of the world we could perceive at any time.
Schwabsky may indeed be right. This complexity of multiple layers pervades much of Doig's work. It's literally dramatized in his painting
Ski Jacket (above), as Schwabsky notes.
The appeal of these multiple layers is self-evident. His art can be read with as much depth as one needs. Beatrix Ruf writes that "at first glance Doig's paintings are 'illustrative' " and she's right. They also evoke the grandeur of great paintings of the past. The rich color of Old Masters, the compositional obsessions of the cubists, even the visual complexity of Philip Guston (below). Doig can be appreciated for the sheer beauty of his art, the textural quality of the paint and transitive light that infuses so much of his work.
I think many parallels can be drawn be
Guston and Doig. The latter is an obsessive worker who
draws a line between the highly personal production of his work and the kitsch endeavors of Jeff Koons. His use of photography as reference material has been highly publicized, but their use differs from the appropriative strategies of Warhol and Koons. Guston created a very personal
code of imagery, enigmatic in its sampling of popular visual tropes, and for both artists these sources were transformed into something else; a very
painterly product.
Both painters create a vaguely disturbing atmosphere, perhaps arising from the blurred lines of interpretation in their art. One can never be sure exactly what is happening; how much narrative? How much existential symbolism? How much are we intruding into the highly personal sphere of the artist?
In an image like
Blotter (right) we can appreciate all these qualities; or none. Guston is quoted as saying that "painting is 'impure'. It is the adjustment of 'impurities' which forces its continuity. We are image-makers and image-ridden." Doig's paintings mark another sequence of impurities. They are incomplete, transitive, and endlessly frustrating if one tries to peer between their cracks too hard. On the other hand, they are the products of an 'image-ridden' age and their refusal to be exact, to nail down their own logic, is strangely comforting.
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