Peter Doig’s “Daytime Astronomy (Grasshopper)”

This painting’s magical quality drew me to it. The dark-roofed house sits in a wonderland of wispy, bone-white trees. Doig, through the two tones of the grass, provides a depth to the piece, as his layered brushstrokes give the ground such a creamy, flowing texture that it looks like two rivers. Those impasto-esque touches in the dark section also create a three-dimensionality; the blades of green literally jut off the canvas, making the house and the work being done inside feel ever more remote. How Doig leads your eye both towards and into the center is evidence of his piece’s immersive character. The landscape also looks to exist out of time, with the bare trees signaling winter but the grass almost bursting with the richness of spring. I ultimately cast it aside because I was looking for a piece that would fill a need in the gallery better, whether in terms of demographic representation, compositional strategy, and subject matter depiction. The Cecily Brown piece Amy and I selected adds more value to the collection from that standpoint. But I’d still love to see that Doig on a wall.

Cecily Brown’s “Where They Are Now”