Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
One of Britain's most successful living painters, known for atmospheric, mysterious works blending the seen, remembered and imagined.
On the island
Eight records
I remember because my father used to sing it quite a lot. And it's his sort of critique of the colonial education system.
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.
it kind of reminds me of the time um on the rigs and going out into town uh on our night soft.
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.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
it really changed the way I thought about making paintings, making art, collaging and taking photographs.
I also love Aretha Franklin and I could have chosen many tracks by her. ... I absolutely love it.
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.
Way, Way OutFavourite
I would choose this track. It's called Way, Way Out.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:53How do you know when you're on the right track [with a painting]? Is it about a feeling or instinct?
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.
Presenter asks
5:08What did your father do for a living?
My father trained as an accountant. His first job was in a nylon factory in Wales. … 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. Anyway, the next thing you know we were on on the boat, the Columbine, to Trinidad.
Presenter asks
9:12How did you all settle in [to Canada]?
It was a little bit difficult for me at first, being this new person at school and having probably like a strange accent. … I definitely felt like a foreigner. 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.
The keepsakes
The 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.
The luxury
Presenter asks
19:38What was your response to the rise of the Young British Artists and the fact that painting was deemed unfashionable?
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 knew I wanted to be a painter and so I I went into sort of in back into my own biography really.
Presenter asks
26:36What does it mean to you to have your family as subjects in your paintings, and how do they feel about it?
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. … 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. … They could be quite critical, yeah.
Presenter asks
29:17What actually happened in the 2016 court case where someone claimed you had given them a painting?
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. … And it was signed Pete Doigie, like D-O-I-G with an E on the end. … they became more and more persistent, and 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. … I had to prove that I hadn't been in prison. … The judge allowed this to go to trial and it just became this strange sort of Kafka-esque kind of like episode. … 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.
“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.”
“I definitely felt like a foreigner. 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.”
“I think it was to kind of go the other way, to go into the personal rather than the manufactured.”
“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.”