Dimensions: image: 173 x 275 mm
Copyright: © Peter Doig | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: Here we have "Ski Lift" by Peter Doig, held within the Tate collection. It’s an etching; the image area itself is about 17 by 27 centimeters. Editor: It’s stark. The monochrome and high contrast give it this ghostly, almost unsettling feel, despite depicting such a recreational scene. Curator: The ski lift itself, looming in the foreground, is a powerful symbol. Think of the ascent—the anticipation, the journey to a higher plane. And the skiers above seem almost suspended, disconnected. Editor: It makes me wonder about the politics of leisure. Who has access to this mountain? How does this imagery reflect broader societal structures of privilege and mobility? Curator: It's a space of both freedom and constraint, mirrored in the visual tension of the printmaking itself. A fascinating dialogue between technique and symbolic weight. Editor: Indeed. The image prompts us to consider not just the joy of skiing, but who gets to experience it.
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Grasshopper is Doig’s third print portfolio, following Ten Etchings 1996 (Tate P11471-P11480) and Blizzard ’77 1997 (Tate P11554-P11561). It was produced in an edition of thirty-five. Tate’s copy is one of seven additional proof sets. Each print is individually signed and numbered ‘TC’ (Tate copy) by the artist. The portfolio is presented in a pale yellow, hinged solander box bearing the artist’s name in dark brown. The title and colophon pages were designed by Peter B. Willberg and printed in dark green. The contents were printed at Hope Sufferance Press, London on 350gsm Zerkall paper and published by Charles Booth-Clibborn under his imprint, The Paragon Press. Colour etching involves a layering process sympathetic to Doig’s painting process of building up colours and image in many stages. The prints in Grasshopper were created using between one and three plates and a range of etching techniques. Variety in texture and tone was created with aquatint (a process for creating an even tonal field), open bite (a method in which unprotected areas of the plate are exposed to acid to produce a very light tone), deep bite (a process which results in very dark tones), spit bite (a method involving painting or splashing acid onto the plate resulting in painterly effects) and sugarlift (a process which allows the artist to paint marks that print rather than having to outline them negatively). The individual prints were originally untitled, but were titled by the artist on publication of Contemporary British Art in Print: The Publications of Charles Booth-Clibborn and his Imprint The Paragon Press 1995-2000 in 2001.
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