Ski Jacket 1994

Curator: Standing before us is Peter Doig’s “Ski Jacket,” an acrylic on canvas work from 1994. What are your initial thoughts? Editor: A kind of haunting beauty. It's almost ethereal. The muted palette—the pale pinks and creams—against that mass of deep blue-green conifers creates an unsettling yet strangely captivating winter scene. I think about landscape, class and colonialism when I see landscapes that imply leisure. Curator: The expressionistic style is crucial. Consider those tiny, almost ghostly, figures populating the slopes. Are they individual people, or symbolic representations of a collective yearning for leisure and escape? The title points us towards clothing, hinting at constructed identities, perhaps performance. Editor: Exactly. Winter sports, like skiing, aren't just about enjoying nature. They're often steeped in socio-economic contexts that can be quite exclusionary, which should be recognised when it is part of this kind of historical scene. There is also this implication of constructed or maintained borders implied here. Does that boundary help serve the interests of some at the expense of others? Curator: And note the fragmented composition—the way Doig uses distinct patches of color and texture. This discontinuity perhaps echoes our fractured relationship with the natural world itself. Consider too, how our experience of it is increasingly mediated through tourism. Ski resorts themselves transform wilderness. Editor: This speaks to how landscapes, even those seemingly untouched, are laden with political baggage, with a history of usage and access often shaped by power dynamics. Also that expressionistic leaning speaks to an unsettledness with a more traditional art style. How can new realities be constructed that subvert dominant cultural norms. Curator: The way the landscape is mirrored by its reflection asks if the true world and the dream of its escapist nature might not simply be one another's hauntings? It raises vital questions, doesn’t it? The role of leisure, memory, identity... Editor: Precisely. Thank you for revealing the social-political layering of leisure embedded in what, on the surface, may appear as a simple idyllic scene.