Grasshopper 1990

Peter Doig made "Grasshopper" using oil paint, and when you look at it, you just know it has come into being through layering, through a process of shifting and emerging. I empathize with Peter here. I can imagine that he stood in front of the canvas and he was thinking about how to create a sense of depth. The texture feels almost dry, chalky. It's not about thick impasto; it’s more about the surface quality and the kind of light that it evokes. See how the colour palette is restrained? The upper sky is a scribbly blue, beneath, a yellowy-orange band. And then the way he's handled the earth, that rust colour. Gestures communicate feeling here. It reminds me a little of Milton Avery, in the way the scene is built up in horizontal bands. Painters are always in conversation, taking cues, being inspired. Peter Doig is showing us that painting is embodied expression, allowing multiple readings, rather than fixed meanings.