Peter Doig
2019
Oil paint on linen
149.5 x 109.5 cm
In this moonlit scene, an artist paints on an island shoreline, a wall between him and the sea. It is not clear if he is completing the blackness of his canvas or cutting through it with white. The carefully arranged composition of the figure in profile has a timeless quality, redolent of an ancient Greek or Egyptian frieze. The setting is the
prison island of Carrera off the coast of Trinidad. Peter Doig visited the prison in 2015, having learned that some of the inmates had become painters. He helped them organise an annual art exhibition of their work on the mainland in Port of Spain.