Peter Doig

Speaker 10:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Presenter0:05

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were castaway to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:45

My castaway this week is the painter Peter Doig, one of Britain's most successful living artists. He was born in Edinburgh, grew up in Trinidad in Canada and trained in London. His itinerant backstory once led him to describe himself as a nowhere painter and his creative path stands at odds with many of his contemporaries. While back in the 1990s works like Damien Hurst's Shark, Tracy Emmons' Unmade Bed and Steve McQueen's short films captured headlines and prizes, his devotion to the paintbrush set him apart and it paid off. His atmospheric, mysterious and often huge paintings blend the seen, the remembered and the imagined with influences from everywhere his life has taken him. His work is revered by critics and has been likened to the greatest artists of the past including Bruegel and Matisse. He's also prized by collectors, setting records and fetching tens of millions at auction. He though is more interested in something harder to quantify. He says, I am trying to create something that is questionable, something that is difficult, if not impossible, to put into words. Peter Doig, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Peter Doig1:52

Thank you very much for having me.

Presenter1:53

So you're trying to capture something intangible. I mean, that's a a tricky place to start, Peter. How do you know when you're on the right track? Is it about a feeling? Is it a instinctive?

Peter Doig2:01

It comes through the making really. It's not really like I have a a vision and then um I seek out that vision through painting and drawing or what have you. Maybe if I was a musician I'd be one of those musicians who spent years between albums just sort of twiddling knobs.

Presenter2:15

Just

Presenter2:16

And I know that you often return to works that you've worked on for a while and then put to one side, but

Presenter2:22

Your average painting, how long would you say you spend on it?

Peter Doig2:24

I don't know. I think if you compress the time sometimes it could be ten years between start and finish but if you compress the time of actual sort of brush to canvas it might only be a a couple of weeks.

Presenter2:35

One of your recent paintings at The Alpinist features a a skier dressed a little like a harlequin. He's carrying a skis on his back, and it's a it's a a huge piece that I think about three metres tall, something like that. How do you deal with the practicalities of working on such large pieces? Because that's that's pretty usual for you.

Peter Doig2:53

Turn them upside down, lay them on the floor, use a ladder.

Peter Doig2:58

Very, very long brush. Yeah, just all those sorts of things really.

Presenter3:02

And I know that you're a great collector of ephemera that can often go into the the works of art that you create, postcards, photographs. Is your studio full of all of that kind of thing, bric a brac music, ideas?

Peter Doig3:15

It's full of quite a lot of records. Quite a lot of, as you describe, postcards and cuttings and things. But

Peter Doig3:21

I'm always drawn back to relatively few.

Peter Doig3:25

The Alpinists, for instance. I mean I it's a postcard I bought in Chamonix I think when I was nineteen, very old picture of a a man hiking above the mountains.

Peter Doig3:34

And I've used that image quite a number of times, but this is the first time I've used it in sort of like a large format.

Presenter3:39

And are are you always listening to music?

Peter Doig3:41

Yeah, I've never really been able to paint without music. Yeah, painting can be boring. It can be also very, very frustrating.

Peter Doig3:48

Hence maybe listening to a lot of music whilst on paint.

Presenter3:51

So, speaking of which, I think we'd better get to your first disc, if you don't mind, Peter. What's it going to be?

Peter Doig3:56

Well the first disc I've chosen is by a Trinidadian artist called The Mighty Sparrow, real name Slinger Francisco. And as a child moving to Trinidad at the age of two through the ages of seven, his music was extremely present. The household I grew up in, my mum and dad, they were not Trinidadian, they were Scots. But nevertheless, all the records in their collection at the time were Clipso records, because that's what everyone listened to.

Peter Doig4:26

I have a particular fondness for Sparrow and this is a song I remember because my father used to sing it quite a lot.

Peter Doig4:32

And it's his sort of critique of the colonial education system.

Presenter4:37

To the education you get when you're small, you will grow up with true ambition and respect from one another.

Speaker 44:48

I love the pleasure

Presenter4:49

Uh

Speaker 44:49

Uh

Speaker 44:50

But in my days in school.

Presenter4:54

Uh

Speaker 44:54

You teach me like a fool.

Speaker 44:56

The things they teach me I should be a black hell in mule

Peter Doig5:01

Didn't the pussy has finished his work along echo? And now he raised him and tinged.

Presenter5:08

The Mighty Sparrow, and Dan is the man in the van. So, Peter Dogg, you were born in Edinburgh to Mary and David, but when you were two your family moved to Trinidad. It was your dad's job, I think, that had taken the family there. What did he do for a living?

Peter Doig5:22

My father trained as an accountant. His first job was in a nylon factory in Wales.

Peter Doig5:27

And I don't think he was particularly happy there. He was constantly moving. He always had itchy feet and wanted to move and he saw a job advertised in the newspaper in Trinidad, and he took the train to London for the interview, not thinking he was going to get it.

Peter Doig5:40

Anyway, the next thing you know we were on on the boat, the Columbine, to Trinidad.

Presenter5:45

He had quite a kind of steady day job, but I think he was quite a creative person on the side. Lots and lots of creative hobbies.

Peter Doig5:51

He made his own paintings. He was much slower than I am even.

Peter Doig5:56

But he was good, but he just didn't realize it himself, I don't think, really. When I show people images of his paintings, they're kind of quite astounded, actually.

Presenter6:03

What did he paint, what would we see if he showed us one?

Peter Doig6:05

Kind of abstractions based on things that he'd seen, quite sort of tender images of like a wall, like quite unusual things to paint for someone who who painted just for themselves really. He was very very interested in what I did and I think that maybe he kind of by proxy learnt from seeing what I did and from the journey that my my work led me on. He also got something out of that.

Presenter6:27

You're the eldest of four, I think, Peter. Tell me about your mum, Mary. Was she creative too?

Peter Doig6:33

No, my mother was extremely so and still is. I mean, she's in her eighties now, but she worked in she went to drama school in Edinburgh in the late fifties and worked in theatre her whole life. It's fair to say that she introduced a lot of young people into the world of theatre.

Presenter6:47

And what about you as a little boy? Would we have pegged you as a future artist?

Peter Doig6:51

I think I drew a lot as a child and I was always interested in in being in the art class. I was never particularly good, but I was keen. I thought I would do something more practical, like maybe work in in theatre, paint sets or that type of thing.

Presenter7:06

Tell me about spending your early l years in Trinidad, because I'm imagining that must have been a very kind of visually stimulating environment. All that incredible, vivid wildlife. Obviously you've got the sea, boats, big part of island life, and both of those things are recurring themes in your work. Did those things capture your imagination?

Peter Doig7:25

It's funny because I left Trinidad in 1966 to move to Canada.

Peter Doig7:29

It never really left me. I mean, the house that I grew up in was full of paintings by Trinidadian artists. My dad was a kind of avid amateur collector and he bought paintings by local artists. And then my father was also an amateur photographer and he took lots and lots of photographs, slides actually, and they were always in carousels, so they were easy to put onto the projector. So I had a mixture of my own memory and what I was reminded by, by what was around. When I returned to Trinidad in 2000, So much of it came back to me. I realized it wasn't just my memory, it was like the smells. It just felt very, very familiar, even though I hadn't been there 33 years. I felt comfortable there.

Presenter8:07

It's time for your next piece of music, Peter. This is your second choice today. Why are you going to take it to your island?

Peter Doig8:12

I could have chosen many, many, many Bob Dylan songs, but I love this song because it's really like the opening to a body of work. It's kind of quite haunting, it's sad, puts me in a mood which I like, and it kind of also I think tells you not to be bothered about all the noise that's going on around you. So it's the first track from Bob Dylan's self-portrait.

Speaker 48:35

On the driving horses in the sun How am I supposed to get in and ridin' done?

Speaker 48:48

Wanna tide horses in the sun, And how am I supposed to get it and ridin' done?

Speaker 49:02

All the tight horses in the sun

Speaker 19:02

Got horses in

Presenter9:05

All The Tired Horses written by Bob Dylan and sung by Hilda Harris, Albertine Robinson and Maritha Stewart.

Presenter9:12

So, Peter Dog, your family moved again when you were seven to Canada. Quite a contrast to life in the Caribbean, I'm imagining. How did you all settle in?

Peter Doig9:20

It was a little bit difficult for me at first, being this new person at school and having probably like a strange accent. You know, we had the most awful clothes, like these British britches with sort of loops underneath the feet.

Peter Doig9:35

I mean, we soon adapt it after sort of being having your face rubbed in the sand in the playground many times.

Peter Doig9:42

I definitely felt like a foreigner.

Speaker 49:43

Mm-hmm.

Peter Doig9:44

When I arrived there and it took me a while to sort of assimilate and you know I had to learn how to do things like skate. Everyone had been skating since they were three.

Presenter9:52

What did you make of the climate? Did you embrace it or was it must have been pretty intense coming from where you'd been living?

Peter Doig9:58

Well, I remember the first thing that happened to me was um it's my first winter in Canada and I was

Peter Doig10:03

We were let out for recess and it was an unusual winter. It was early December and it was still hadn't snowed, and it was freezing, freezing cold.

Peter Doig10:11

and it started to snow during the recess and these big flakes are coming down. And I was watching this snowflake that was about the size of a postage chap and it landed on the metal railing. So I went down to lick it off because I thought and then my tongue got stuck to the railing.

Presenter10:24

The railing

Peter Doig10:27

I had to pull myself off like that and it and remove a big chunk of skin. I never did that again.

Presenter10:32

No. It's amazing that you became became so interested in snow scenes that featured in your work after that traumatic first introduction.

Peter Doig10:37

In your mind after that trauma.

Presenter10:41

When you were twelve, Peter, you and your younger brother were sent to boarding school in Scotland. How do you remember your time there?

Peter Doig10:47

It was like being sent into another century. I had hair down below my shoulders. I'd never gone to a

Peter Doig10:54

an all boys' school before. I'd never worn a uniform before. It was a real shock to the system, the discipline, the maleness of it. Um and I wanted to leave as, you know, as soon as I could. I mean I it gave me a taste for music in some ways. I remember when when the first Roxy Music single Pajamarama came out I was sent into town by one of the older boys to buy it. You know we were allowed to watch Top of the Pops so I had that experience, which I wouldn't have had if I hadn't been there.

Presenter11:21

You managed to to get yourself home to Canada by the time you were sixteen, but I know that you didn't really find your feet again at school after that. What was going on with you at that time?

Peter Doig11:30

Not only did I move back to Canada, but I moved the family moved from Quebec to Toronto and we moved right to the center of the city.

Peter Doig11:37

And we went to the the local high school in Center City. It was a huge school. I think there was like three and a half thousand people there. I actually got very excited to be in a city for the first you know, living the first time. And I remember riding my bike up and down Young Street, which is the main street in Toronto, just looking at all the shops and the bars and the clubs and

Peter Doig11:54

And just wanting sort of

Peter Doig11:56

To enjoy that, school seemed like

Peter Doig11:59

You know, bye-bye.

Presenter12:00

Okay, so the lure was there of rebellion and wildness. Did you indulge?

Peter Doig12:06

Uh we all indulged, yeah, we all indulged and uh as a s a schoolboy I indulged, you know, way too much, which meant school was a bit of a blur. I was getting into music, I was getting into the things that the musicians sang about.

Peter Doig12:19

And so

Peter Doig12:20

Of course you want to experiment, really.

Presenter12:21

Well, none of that surprises me given what you went on to do creatively, Peter. But the next chapter kind of does, because at seventeen you go to work on a gas rig. Why did you take the job?

Peter Doig12:33

Because when I stopped going to school after grade 10, my father said to me, you know, you can't treat the house like a hotel, you have to work. I think he probably got a bit fed up with me and suggested that I went out west. And he had a few contacts out there. So I went out with a friend and within about a week or so, I had a job on a gas rig. But it it really changed me, yeah.

Presenter12:52

Ow.

Peter Doig12:53

It was very dangerous work, and you had to keep your wits about you because of who was around as well. You know, guys who had.

Peter Doig12:59

come to work, probably having drag all afternoon before they came to t to the night shift. Just incredible characters.

Peter Doig13:08

My first day on the job I went to the local farm whose actually land we were drilling on and I said to him, you know, would you mind if I slept in your barn? I could give you some money if I could sleep in your barn. I'm working on the rig. And he said, oh no, he said you can stay in the house. And they let me stay in the house and I was there their kind of lodger. And then after work on the rigs we would go into the fields and round up the cattle on horse. And that was just normal.

Presenter13:31

Time for some more music, Peter. Your third disc today. What's it gonna be?

Peter Doig13:35

I've chosen um a track by Hank Williams, who's an artist I've loved for as long as I can remember, and um I've chosen the track Honky Tonkin because it kind of reminds me of the time um on the rigs and going out into town uh on our night soft. Yeah, beautiful song.

Speaker 113:58

When you are sad and lonely and have no place to go.

Speaker 114:04

Come to see me, baby, and bring along some do and we'll go honk talking, honking, donkin, honky, donkin, honey, baby, we

Presenter14:17

He go honky-tonking round his pound.

Presenter14:22

Hank Williams and Hunky Tonking. So Peter Doig, you eventually enrolled at Wimbledon School of Art. You were twenty, I think, and at first you were taking a foundation year, nineteen seventy nine. Why did you want to study in London?

Peter Doig14:37

I was very interested in punk and particularly post-punk music, and I think that's really what sort of was the draw to come to London. I thought that the theatre was probably where I might end up. I soon discovered once I was there that I was much more drawn to painting and the world of painters. I got encouragement by certain tutors, and actually, one was a technician in the etching department who was really into blues music.

Peter Doig15:04

saw some of the work I was doing. I remember him saying, Is that Charlie Parker you're drawing? and I said, Yeah, it is and I was quite pleased that he actually recognized who it was. And then other tutors, incredibly generous with their time. I mean, one of them suggested I apply to St. Martin's. And I remember looking around it and feeling quite intimidated by

Peter Doig15:22

Not just the work that was going, but just the way people looked as well.

Presenter15:25

I I guess that the punk scene has has really been in full flow. There's the emergence of all that very interesting kind of post-punk new romantic DIY culture.

Peter Doig15:35

Well, I mean I think you know the Blitz Club for instance was still just about open or was was open and then there was lots of sort of off shoots, like all these little clubs all over Soho and

Presenter15:43

So that was the kind of like the crucible of the new romantic scene.

Peter Doig15:46

Yeah, I think that there's probably only, I don't know, 200 people in the world who dressed in that way. Well, not you could say that way, because everyone was quite individual, but probably.

Peter Doig15:54

Thirty of them were at Saint Martin's. And I remember the first morning at Saint Martin's when I arrived there, going to the um the canteen and there was a table of four of the most prominent practitioners of of that art and it was extraordinary just to think they'd come on the bus like that.

Presenter16:09

We've got to make some room for the music, Peter. It's your fourth choice next. What have you gone for?

Peter Doig16:13

The track that I've chosen is one that I think remains as fresh today as it was when I first heard it back in nineteen seventy nine. It's by Linton Quasi Johnson. It's called Want If you Go Rave.

Presenter16:24

And why have you chosen this track in particular?

Peter Doig16:26

Because it really reminds me of what London was like then. You know, it was a tough, rough city. Everyone I knew was ducking and diving, desperate to try and find a place to live.

Peter Doig16:35

You know, we lived in housing associations, you know, legalized squats. I think the song says it all, but it says it in this kind of gentle way that when you then when you listen to the lyrics, they're talking about a very tough world really, and it was.

Presenter17:05

I was walking down the road the other day When I hear a little huge man say

Presenter17:12

You m said.

Presenter17:16

One figure, Lyndon Quasi Johnson. So Peter Doig, after graduating from St Martin's, did you have a plan about how you were gonna make it as an artist?

Peter Doig17:28

No, I think that in those days you were expected to go and find a studio, have a job and then just sort of keep on working probably for decades. I mean we all hoped obviously that we'd get a break.

Presenter17:39

You've got yourself a job. You were working as a dresser at the English National Opera.

Peter Doig17:43

It was literally 10 minutes walk from St. Martin's or 10 minutes run if you were late. Quite a lot of mischief went on. I mean not as much mischief as the stage hands got up to. Like nailing Nouriev's clogs to the floor and hiding his precious thermos of Russian tea at his leg warmers, his very, very holy leg warmers that he had to wear. So they were always playing there's a lot of hijinks around Nouriev for some reason.

Speaker 418:04

No, no, no.

Peter Doig18:09

But he also really he really was very fond of the stage hands. One time it was the penultimate performance, it was a matinee of of Petrushka and actually Nouriev was dancing the lead.

Peter Doig18:20

I was actually dressing with a friend the m characters within the market scene.

Peter Doig18:25

One of the the movement group hadn't turned up, so they needed someone to to take his place.

Peter Doig18:30

And my friend Hayden um was kind of the same shape and size as him, so they stuck him in his crepe sellers costume.

Peter Doig18:36

And we were all watching from the side of the stage and thinking this was absolutely hilarious.

Peter Doig18:42

And so I wanted to go on as well. And so they.

Peter Doig18:44

The the dancers made me up in a costume they found like bits and pieces of a costume. It was like a sort of Napoleonic soldier's costume and uh I remember I made a double handlebar moustache out of a of a bit of the bear costume.

Peter Doig18:56

And we went on in the next scene, and this man came up to me.

Speaker 118:58

Time.

Peter Doig19:01

whilst we were on stage and tapped me on the shoulder and he said he asked me who I was.

Peter Doig19:05

And I said, who are you? And he said, I'm the choreographer.

Peter Doig19:09

And so um we ran off stage, ran down to the change room, washed off washed off all the makeup and hung up the costumes and were standing in our sort of street clothes on the side of stage, you know, as if we were just had just been watching. They didn't quite bring the police in, but they really thought there was some someone who was trying to sort of sabotage the production or maybe get to Nouriev or something.

Peter Doig19:27

And so we were duly

Peter Doig19:29

Sent on our way.

Presenter19:30

You were dismissed?

Peter Doig19:31

We were dismissed, but then rehired about a month later when the opera came back, because we were very friendly with the man who ran the the wardrobe department.

Presenter19:38

So around this time, Peter, the the first wave of the young British artists got going, late eighties, and and painting wasn't really part of the the trend then, part of the conversation. In fact, it was deemed unfashionable in some circles. What was your response to what was happening in the art world at the time?

Peter Doig19:56

I think it was to kind of go the other way, to go into the personal rather than the manufactured. I felt I couldn't compete and I didn't I wouldn't have felt comfortable making the type the type of work that I was seeing. I mean, it's that's a very general term because I you know

Speaker 420:10

Pooh.

Peter Doig20:10

Of course there were so many different types of work being made.

Peter Doig20:13

But, you know, I knew I wanted to be a painter and so I I went into sort of in back into my own biography really. It has to be said that I'd spent two and a half years back in Canada prior to starting my course at Chelsea. I'd never really planned it, but I realized that maybe this was something that could become a um a way of working for me.

Peter Doig20:33

You know, in Canada there's a great landscape tradition. That genre, that whole sort of way of working wasn't really known here too much.

Presenter20:40

It's time to take your next track, Peter, your fifth choice today. What have you gone for?

Peter Doig20:45

Well, I've chosen a track by Grandmaster Flash on the Furious Five, a very well-known one, The Message.

Peter Doig20:51

Back in the day, 1981, I never really heard anything quite like it really.

Peter Doig20:56

telling this sort of tragic urban

Peter Doig20:59

Story. It was kind of mesmerizing. When it was released, I remember just hearing it everywhere. So to this day, when I hear it, the hair stands up on the back of my neck.

Peter Doig21:07

For me, I think as a painter too, at the time, it really changed the way I thought about making paintings, making art, collaging and taking photographs. I would go to the slide library at St. Martin's and take out slides and I'd project them onto canvases and trace things out.

Peter Doig21:23

It gave me a kind of liberty that I didn't have before when I was just drawing with my own hand out of my own imagination.

Presenter21:28

So that sense of sampling, remixing, building something in layers.

Peter Doig21:31

Absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 121:32

Her brother's doing fast on my mother's TV says she watches too much, it's just not healthy. All my children in the daytime, Dallas at night, can't even see the game or the Sugar A fight.

Speaker 121:43

Electors that ring my phone and scare my wife when I'm not home. Gotta bump education, double-digit inflation. Can't take the train to the job, there's a strike at the station. I'm in King Kong standing on my back, can't stop to turn around. Broke my sacrophiliac, a mid-range migraine, cancer membrane. Sometimes I think I'm going insane. I swear I might hijack a plane. Go push.

Speaker 122:03

Call, um, close.

Presenter22:05

The Message Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five Peter Doigy went back to Canada for a while with um your first wife, Bonnie, and painted film scenery for a little while, I think. You were establishing your art career at the time.

Presenter22:18

What kind of sets were you creating back then?

Peter Doig22:20

I kind of hooked up with this guy whose specialty was B-movie horror, I guess. He would hire me to paint sets that resembled degraded interiors of houses and like I remember one of them was like a room that looked like a police station that hadn't been painted since the 1930s and that type of stuff. So it was kind of effect painting really. But it kind of taught me to use paint on a big scale and in a broad way and it kind of came in useful. I never thought it would, but it it did actually change the way that I ended up making paintings. Because before that I was kind of making paintings with quite small brushes and

Speaker 122:41

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 122:55

Yeah.

Peter Doig22:56

When I returned to art school when I was in my early thirties, I I had a different approach to using the material. I became interested in that in painting, like the sensation of what it's like to be in a a forest when it's snowing.

Presenter23:07

So you went back to London in your early thirties to do an MA at the Chelsea School of Art, and your exhibition show there featured some of your Canada inspired paintings. They were priced at a thousand pounds each at the time. Now some of your most sought after works, I think Swamp sold for thirty million pounds in in twenty twenty one.

Presenter23:27

How does it feel when you hear about your paintings being sold for that much money?

Peter Doig23:33

What kind of feels like

Peter Doig23:34

That's someone else in a way. I had that painting hanging in our Housing Association flat in King's Cross in the living room. It basically took up the whole wall. It was there for kind of close to a year and then someone who had seen it in the show at at Chelsea bought it, I think for eight hundred pounds.

Speaker 123:48

I think f

Peter Doig23:50

And then they sold it and then at the time it was it was it was huge, but it was it was kind of life changing to them. I don't know. I mean, I have I have mixed feelings about the secondary market really. I do think that artists should get some sort of royalty in the way that other art forms do.

Peter Doig24:06

There's not much you can do about it really and I don't you know, I don't I don't really want to do anything about it because um it's all part of it, I guess.

Presenter24:13

You went back to Trinidad in two thousand two and the period following that would become a pivotal time in your creative life. How long did you initially plan to stay?

Peter Doig24:23

Well, I originally went in 2000 to do a residency. I pretty much knew by the end of that month that I wanted to come back and was thinking that I wanted, you know, my own family, my children, to experience some of what I'd experienced because it left such a mark on me really. They were growing up in central London and becoming quite street-wise at the age of 10, I thought. So I thought it'd be quite good for them to experience another strong culture really.

Presenter24:48

And what was it that kept you there?

Peter Doig24:50

Constantly being inspired, meeting so many great people, having such good friendships. The culture turned out as a place that's got

Peter Doig24:59

very, very strong culture of its own. They don't really need to look outside themselves to be quite happy culturally.

Presenter25:05

Time for some more music, Peter. It's your sixth choice today. What are you taking to the island next?

Peter Doig25:10

I think really from the time that I was um a late teenager on I've always loved club music. I thought I should include one track that reminded me of

Peter Doig25:20

music from that world. But I also love Aretha Franklin and I could have chosen many tracks by her.

Peter Doig25:27

And maybe this isn't

Peter Doig25:29

everyone's favorite wreath, but I absolutely love it.

Presenter25:32

Which is it?

Peter Doig25:33

Uh jump to it.

Presenter25:36

Goodbye.

Speaker 425:37

Uh

Speaker 425:39

Scandal or shame

Speaker 425:42

Uh you wanna move

Speaker 425:47

Drives means

Speaker 425:51

I can't talk to you now, I'm girl, I got love again.

Speaker 425:55

But my mirror goes, I gotta jump to it.

Speaker 425:59

I'm in a hurry, there's love to get

Speaker 426:03

But now there we go!

Presenter26:05

Jump to it, Aretha Franklin. So Peter Doyd, when you finish a painting after many months and you've poured your life and soul into it, I wonder how it feels once it's been sold and you no longer get to see it every day. Is it hard to say goodbye?

Peter Doig26:19

Well, I definitely regret selling certain paintings. I'm happy when they go to public places. But then again, you know, sometimes they just end up in storage. But, you know, I think that one of the things about making paintings it's

Peter Doig26:30

It's good to have examples of what you do in your own studio so you you know you can see that you've actually done something in the past.

Presenter26:36

In your latest exhibition, there are paintings which include your second wife, your son and one of your daughters, too. You're a father of eight. I wonder what it means to you to have your family as subjects, and how do they feel about it? Do they enjoy sissing?

Peter Doig26:51

My family are very close to my work. My wife Parana has um for the longest while been the person who's most connected to my work, inasmuch so that I would be sharing the making of the painting as, you know, like as as it's happening really.

Presenter27:04

So she's a kind of sounding boards as part of that process.

Peter Doig27:07

My kids too are are interested and um they would come to the studio and uh see what I'm doing and th they've always got comments. Just see like

Presenter27:15

Yeah.

Peter Doig27:18

They could be quite critical, yeah. Which is is a good thing'cause I you know, uh th'cause in a way you it's it's important for

Peter Doig27:24

have another set of eyes on what you're doing with

Presenter27:26

Yeah.

Presenter27:27

You moved back to London in 2021. Has being here changed your creative focus?

Peter Doig27:32

You know, leaving Trinidad was a big, a big deal for us. Also, I arrived here and I had an empty studio because all my work was, work in progress was in Trinidad. And so I had to sort of work in this empty space with brand new canvases and it's only once you get going and you've got things to refer to and like a kind of mess to sort of dig into.

Peter Doig27:52

that I find I can be creative for want of a better word.

Speaker 427:55

I see.

Peter Doig27:56

So it took me a good while. It took me close to a year to really get going. I do miss Trinidad and I wish it was closer. When I was living in Trinidad and New York, you know, Trinidad was four hours away, same time zone. Whereas from London it's very different really. It seems psychologically it seems a long way away over this big ocean.

Presenter28:12

Peter, let's have some more music. It's your seventh choice today, your penultimate selection. What are we going to hear?

Peter Doig28:18

Well I wanted to choose a track by Kraftwerk, partly because what an amazing band, but also because of the time that I spent in Germany teaching, it's a kind of like a bit of a homage to that for me. And also I got to know Florin Schneider, who was one of the formers of Kraftwerk when I was in Dusseldorf. Very special person and special musician. This is Kraftwerk's Computer Love.

Speaker 429:04

Should we talk about it?

Speaker 429:11

Shoot for the

Presenter29:17

Computer Love by Craftwork. So Peter Doig, you are one of the world's most successful living artists. That success did lead to a very strange chapter in twenty sixteen. Someone took you to court claiming that you'd given them a painting of yours. You said the incident never took place. What actually happened?

Peter Doig29:35

First of all, these people came to me saying that they had a painting that I made when I was 17. Would I like to see it? I said, yeah, why not? Knowing that I hadn't made any paintings on canvas until many years later. But I just at the time I was just curious, what have they got, type thing. And they sent this image of this painting. It was this sort of desert scene. And I just said, nice painting, but sorry, not by me. And it was signed Pete Doigie, like D-O-I-G with an E on the end.

Speaker 430:02

Mm-hmm.

Peter Doig30:03

After that they became more and more persistent, and

Peter Doig30:06

threatening that they knew this stuff about my past and there's this whole story about how I I'd been in prison in Thunder Bay, Ontario when I was 18 or so and I'd made this painting whilst in prison and the and sold it to one of the prison officers.

Presenter30:22

To be clear, you'd never been in prison then.

Peter Doig30:24

No, to be clear, I'd never been in prison.

Presenter30:25

Yeah.

Peter Doig30:27

But I had to prove that I hadn't been in prison.

Presenter30:29

Uh

Speaker 430:29

No matter.

Peter Doig30:30

And that was really difficult. I had to prove where I was between the age of sort of 17 and going into 19 or whatever. Obviously pre-computer. The judge allowed this to go to trial and it seems like nothing, but it just became this strange sort of Kafka-esque kind of like episode. And my legal team actually discovered the person who made the painting, who died about 18 months before we found him. We got in touch with his sister, we got in touch with the man who taught him painting in prison. That side of it was really interesting. Like the life of Doigie was kind of fascinating, much harder and tougher than the life I'd lived. I mean he'd left home at 14, lived on the road all over North America into Canada and was arrested a number of times and ended up in Thunder Bay and made this painting.

Peter Doig31:16

The thing I really objected to was the fact that because I had a similar name and because my paintings sold for X amount of dollars, they wanted me to attach my name to another artist's work. So kind of erasing him. Erasing him, really.

Presenter31:27

So kind of erasing him.

Presenter31:29

Mm-hmm.

Peter Doig31:30

It was very greedy.

Presenter31:31

You won the case.

Peter Doig31:33

I won the case, yeah, but it you know, it cost a huge amount of money, but uh we did win it, yeah.

Presenter31:37

We're about to cast you away, Peter. You've had quite a nomadic life, as we've heard. I wonder whether that will prepare you for life on a desert island?

Peter Doig31:44

I definitely like spending time on my own, but, you know, I definitely miss family and friends. I could spend, you know, a good week or so probably.

Presenter31:52

How are your practical skills?

Peter Doig31:53

Not too bad. You know, I can light fires and stuff like that.

Presenter31:56

But the basics are there.

Peter Doig31:57

Probably better than basic, but you know.

Presenter31:58

Modesty prevents you from saying

Peter Doig32:00

I'm not going to build a house out of it. I'm not gonna build like a sort of like a a cabin, you know.

Presenter32:04

We'll let you have one more track before you go, if you don't mind, Peter. This is your final choice today. What have you gone for?

Peter Doig32:10

Well, I've chosen a track by another Trinidadian musician, Winston Bailey, who who sang under the name of Shadow and was an artist that I discovered when I moved back to Trinidad in the early two thousands. Embarrassed to say that I was unaware of his work.

Peter Doig32:25

Before that.

Peter Doig32:26

in the thirty three years that I was away. But

Peter Doig32:30

I soon became very interested in his work.

Presenter32:31

And you've painted him before. He's featured in a painting of yours.

Peter Doig32:35

I've painted him a few times, yeah. I would say he's definitely my favourite musician from Trinidad. And so I would choose this track. It's called Way, Way Out.

Speaker 132:45

I gave you everything I own.

Speaker 132:50

You still left me alone.

Speaker 432:54

Now you are back with terrible dice. Tears in your eyes, but it

Speaker 132:59

Don't be a lie

Speaker 133:03

On dreaming of the special Sunday

Speaker 133:07

The very, very special Sunday

Speaker 133:12

When I'll be heading your way

Speaker 133:16

But baby, you are way away

Presenter33:19

Shadow and Way, Way Out. So Peter Doig, I'm going to send you away to your desert island. I'm giving you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take another book of your own. What would you like to choose?

Peter Doig33:30

I would choose a very large sketch book. I haven't read the Bible for a very, very long time, so I I might sort of, you know, get into that, and likewise with Shakespeare, so I think there's plenty of reading if I want to read. If I'm going to be stranded in this island for a long time I might be able to teach myself to draw finally.

Presenter33:46

Well, Peter, luckily for you, there is precedent for someone taking a sketchbook. Emmy Lou Harris has gone before you to her island with a sketchbook, so I'm going to allow you that. What about a luxury item?

Peter Doig33:58

I would take something that is luxurious but also very practical'cause I need t to survive.

Presenter34:04

It's not allowed to be practical. It's got to be a luxury item for pleasure or sensory stimulation.

Peter Doig34:06

Oh.

Peter Doig34:10

Okay, yeah.

Presenter34:10

If it's if it's leaning into the the work of art or a a cultural artefact rather than a practical item, then

Peter Doig34:14

Yeah.

Peter Doig34:16

Okay, well I'll take a very special samurai designed cutlass.

Presenter34:21

Well, I can't argue with that. That's definitely a work of art. It's yours. I'm I'm not going to ask what you're going to do with it later. And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today?

Peter Doig34:26

Can you do it later?

Presenter34:31

Would you rush to save from the waves if you had to?

Peter Doig34:33

Probably the shadow zone.

Presenter34:34

Where we're at.

Peter Doig34:35

Yeah.

Presenter34:35

And why?

Peter Doig34:36

makes me think of certain people and I just love it, yeah. I love his voice.

Presenter34:40

Peter Doig, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Peter Doig34:44

Thank you for having me.

Presenter35:00

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Peter. We've cast away many artists including Tracy Emin, Sonia Boyce and Steve McQueen. You can find these episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and through BBC Sounds. The studio manager for today's programme was Sarah Hockley, the producers were Sarah Taylor, Claire Bartlett and Tim Bannow. Next time my guest will be the former footballer Jill Scott. I do hope you'll join us.

Peter Doig35:32

Hello, I'm Brian Cox. I'm Robin Entz. Welcome to this very professional trail for the Infinite Monkey Cage summer run.

Speaker 435:39

And this is just going to be information.

Speaker 435:43

We will be talking about wasps.

Peter Doig35:45

Bees, super volcanoes, mushrooms and sharks, ancient DNA and are we what we eat. And we'll be joined by Harry Hill, Chris Van Tilliker, Ben Wilbond, Rachel Paris.

Presenter35:56

Doctor Nehru?

Peter Doig35:57

and Professor Nin.

Presenter35:59

They're very

Peter Doig35:59

Yeah.

Presenter36:00

The new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. If you're in the UK, you can hear it all right now on BBC Sounds.

Speaker 436:06

Do you know what, we nearly did a really professional trailer, but then that last bit of it has uh has spoiled him.

Peter Doig36:11

I think we're going to get told off again.

Speaker 436:12

Yeah.