In her introduction to this catalogue, Margaret Atwood writes about the experience of looking at Doig's work and reflects on the source of his images. Atwood seemed an apt choice to comment on Doig as her short story Death by Landscape is a work of fiction for which the artist has a particular affinity. The story is about a Canadian woman who sees the spectral presence of a long dead childhood friend in her collection of paintings. On an obvious level Atwood's story captures the Canadian landscape of the artist's youth--one that he has depicted many times.

Peter Doig's paintings are variously described as uneasy, enigmatic, and dreamlike. At once nostalgic and contemporary, they speak of memory and the endurance of images. Atmospheric and melancholic, Doig's paintings capture seemingly inconsequential moments that are somehow highly charged. Though less well known, Doig's works on paper are equally haunting. These works explore many of the same themes and images but are not merely a preamble to the canvases. Vehicles for innovation that are full and finished entities in themselves, they have a presence which is entirely their own. Many maintain the tension between abstraction and representation that is characteristic of his painting, but the experimental nature of works on paper offers a freedom that painting does not. In the numerous variations on a single theme, Doig plays with technique and mood; there are no constraints. This, the first major collection of the artist's works on paper, catches the creative process as it happens.

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