Coop -

One artist I have discovered by suggestion of Lia is named Peter Doig. Peter Doig is a landscape painter which is largely why I am attracted to his work. I love painting landscapes but sometimes struggle to make them important. It was very intriguing to learn about Peter Doig because I found I had some things in common with him. His work is influenced by past memories, cinema and photographs that he takes or stumbles upon. I do a lot of work from my own personal photos and so I was interested to learn about his approach to using photos. One response Doig made to how he treats source photos that I found compelling was “sometimes paint gets spilled or sprayed on them, and it adds an unexpected layer that you can refer too. The reality of the original feels less constricting, and this provides an opening. It takes the reality away from the photograph and turns it into a more abstract image.” A reason why I admire Doig’s work is I want to create abstract landscapes in my practice and his work is inspiring to me. I am inspired by the colorful palette and the saturated application of paint. Doig started making paintings that were really thick like impasto and then decided to switch to using thin liquified paints which give an atmospheric and layered effect. I am also inspired by the wide variety of brush strokes which creates dimensionality and makes the negative space interesting. I like the way he creates his compositions, finding the organic shapes in nature and contrasting them with something more rigid like a house or building. The paintings are moody and intricate and evoke emotion. I think they are successful in evoking emotion because the colors he uses are not typically colors associated with the subject matter however they are extremely effective. I think his approach to color is unique and something I would like to incorporate into my own works. Lastly, one thing I enjoyed from Doig was an interview in which he says “I hope that I don't have too much control, because mistakes are an essential part of everything I make. Many of the paintings are essentially mistake upon mistake. That's how they evolve.” I had a teacher in the first grade who always made us work with our mistakes when we made art and that is something that will stay with me forever and so I resonated personally with Doig’s comment. I think mistakes in your artwork are important to growth and help the process evolve.