Back in November 2019 (before the pandemic) I attended a Peter Doig exhibition at the Michael Werner Gallery in Mayfair. It was good. It was also free. His current show, at Courtaulds - Somerset House, isn't free. Not only that, it's got a few of the same paintings in.
Canal (2023)
Oh well, at least the paintings are (still) good. I sketched out some background on Doig's life back in 2019 but since then he's returned from Trinidad (his home for much of his life) and settled in London. The colour that imbued his Trinidadian paintings, however, has not dulled since his return. Look at the red of that bridge in Canal, the blue of the young man's jacket, the inky darkness of the eerie skies.
Doig's not looking to capture reality as much as he's hoping to portray emotions and memories. He's not, he says, interested in creating real spaces, only painted spaces. He's creating a world not replicating one that already exists. But, of course, his world is not so out there as to be unrecognisable. He resides very much in the uncanny valley.
He claims influence from the likes of Manet, Monet, Gauguin, Cezanne, and Pissarro and yet his work doesn't actually look like the work of any of those artists. There are nods to Gauguin in the way he portrays tropical island life but whereas Gauguin had a rather creepy, and morally dubious, attitude to the young women of Tahiti, Doig looks at the musical scene of Trinidad. Calypso musicians like The Rockafellas and Shadow (that's him in Music Shop) inspired much of his work. As does the poetry of Doig's old friend Derek Walcott who asked "where else have you heard such music, such great noise?".
Music (2 Trees) (2019)
Music Shop (2019-23)
Night Bathers (2011-19)
Music and beaches, Doig's life in Trinidad doesn't sound like a bad one. Night Bathers is set on Trinidad's Maracas Bay but instead of showing sunbathers enjoying the sun, the subjects of Doig's painting are lying on the beach in what appears to be the dead of night. It still looks idyllic though. Even if it probably shouldn't.
Painting On An Island (Carrera) is another moonlit study and it's another set by a shore. It's set on a prison island but there's no real narrative to the painting. It is simply an image of a man on a beach, at night, painting. Is that man Doig? One of Doig's friends? A complete invention of Doig's? You decide.
Painting On An Island (Carrera) (2019)
Night Studio (Studiofilm & Racquet Club) (2015)
Night Studio IS a self-portrait. Of Doig in front of one of his own paintings. A painting of a stag. There's also a game of racquetball taking place in the painting. Why? Who knows. But it looks interesting.
My favourite, though, is Alice At Boscoe's. The artist's daughter relaxing in a bright orange hammock in the garden of the celebrated Trinidadian painter, dancer, and musician Boscoe Holder. Again, it's got a holiday vibe, a tropical vibe, and an uncanny vibe. The verdant greenery plays off against the glowing hammock and the equally bright paving slabs. The human in the painting is almost grey, bordering on invisible, in Alice At Boscoe's.
Alice At Boscoe's (2014-23)
Alpinist (2019-22)
Doig likes to mix it up though. It's not all beaches, calypso music, and lying around in hammocks. Winter holidays get a look in too. Having grown up, partially, in Canada, he's a lifelong skier though I'd probably not have gone for the harlequin jumpsuit look if I was up in the Alps. I suppose it would make it easier for any potential rescue team to locate him.
In truth, the snowy Alpine image is a bit of an outlier in this relatively small, just two rooms, show and soon we're back to Doig's favourite subjects. The beach (Bather is said to be inspired by the bathers of Paul Cezanne and Edvard Munch) and music. House Of Music (Soca Boat) probably doesn't need explaining, the title does the heavy lifting there, but it's a lovely image. It's nice to look at the painting but I came away with the feeling that I'd rather be on that boat than looking at it, rather in that hammock than looking at a painting of it, and rather listening to that "great noise" than reading poetry about it. Doig's art is lovely. But it's the art of a man who lives in a world most of us can only dream about right now.
Bather (2019-23)
House Of Music (Soca Boat) (2019-23)
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