Music (2 Trees) is a print based on the “Trinidad” paintings. Each print is framed in oak with Optium Tru Vue acrylic. In Music (2 Trees), Peter Doig combines personal memories and experiences with art historical references as well as his deep love of music and its profound influence on his practice. The print, based on the painting Music (2 Trees) (2019), is set in a tropical landscape outside Doig’s Trinidadian home. The central male figure plucks on a cuatro – a small guitar popular in Caribbean folk music – and is perhaps a tribute to his late Trinidadian artist friend Embah. The woman sitting on a donkey is modeled after the artist’s wife, Parinaz Mogadassi, but also references a watercolor by mid-19th-century Impressionist Camille Pissarro, whom Doig has cited as a direct source of inspiration for several of his works. Music has had a profound influence on Doig’s work: musicians and their instruments can be seen in many different contexts and settings in and outside of Trinidad.

The musical references in Music (2 Trees) are evident, as the two men with their instruments serenade the woman with their calypso singing. The rhythm and tempo of Caribbean calypso is suggested in the exaggerated and complementary greens, blues, pinks, and reds of the painting, as well as in the curved and sinuous forms of the composition, which never seem to stand quite still. As a high-resolution giclée print on smooth cotton canvas, Music (2 Trees) accurately reproduces the mood and atmosphere of the original painting, with this special printing technique ingeniously conveying texture, detail and depth. This printing technique allows us to closely examine the effect of Doig’s thin layers of paint, which barely cover the textured original canvas, along with the denser layers of bright and rich colors that make this work so compelling.