Peter Doig at The Courtauld review ★★★★★

A woman lies in swimwear on a beach, but what’s above her is the moon instead of the sun, and the man in the distance appears to be from another scene altogether. Welcome to the surreal, dream-like art of Peter Doig – who has a major showcase of his large-scale paintings and smaller drawings at The Courtauld.

Peter Doig is a painter whose works have sold at auction for tens of millions of pounds and is highly regarded by those working in contemporary art – often seen as a painter’s painter. However, outside the art world he remains largely unknown and this exhibition may act as a catalyst in changing his current status.

Peter Doig, Alpinist, 2022. Pigment on linen. © Peter Doig, All Rights Reserved.

He isn’t afraid to include his own family in his work to make them more personal – there’s a fantastic brightly coloured painting with his daughter in a hammock at its centre, but unlike the rest of the scene she appears almost translucent as if she’s fading in and out of existence. It’s as if Doig is showing us what he can do with a painting, and the results are impressive.

Not every work hits the mark and the drawings on the first-floor gallery aren’t as impressive as the paintings on the top floor. But it’s his versatility that keeps us coming back to stare at them – highlighting his range there’s an alpine skier in a jazzy outfit, mountains in the background, and on the adjacent wall is Trinidadian singer Shadow in sunnier climes. Very different scenes, but Doig manages to capture the dynamism and the beautiful light in both of them.

Contemporary figurative painting can sometimes feel lacking if it doesn’t have a clear narrative or tackles a deeper conceptual issue. However, while neither of these are openly evident in his work it doesn’t matter because he’s such a fine painter, and it feels as if he’s happy to draw our own narratives from his striking paintings. This exhibition is a painting masterclass from Peter Doig.