Peter Doig @ Courtauld Gallery, London

Colour popping portraits. Sublime use of colours, textures and layers of paint to suggest people and place. Characterful.

I went in not knowing a lot about the art or the artist; just saw an advert and liked what I saw. Which sums up Peter Doig — a Scottish painter who has been based in Canada, the Caribbean and London; he paints himself and others in unique ways. Some of his canvases are huge and really pop when you’re across the other side of the room; close to they can look quite 2D at time, and then you can admire the colours, textures, playing with patterns going on. He lights up a painting like Van Gogh or 2-D landscapes like Cezanne, and yet he isn’t like anyone else.

The colours on Alpinist are a wonder and all the textures going on here. The blues! Height and depth and weight are captured all at once.

There was joy in all the musical instruments portrayed in House of Music (Soca Boat) and the surrealist aspect of Canal, as his son eats eggs on one side of a canal bridge. And yet, as you whizz backwards, the details of the bricks, the colours, the dots of blossom all jump into relief. The same thing happens as you back away from Alice at Boscoe’s — the orange tiles start to pop against the greenery, giving immense energy to a portrait of a girl in a hammock.

I love the laces, the sweet little street lamp, the mesh of the fence of the racquetball court, the energy and textures going on here! The strangeness of the tree behind the figure. (Self-Portrait (Fernandes Compound)).

It also feels quite magical realist at points — but the moon pops from the other side of the room, and starts to glimmer as he shows prison artists at work. Somehow he portrays what is and at the same time manages to take us out of the immediate scene into the wider location — as happens in Soca Music Shop, where the shop becomes a gateway to the landscape, the sea and the musical instruments take on a life of their own. The owner stands with pride infront of his shop, and yet also has a magical life of his own — the design of his sweeping cape-like coat almost looks skeletal in parts. The instruments seem about to move and jump out of the shop window.

You can also take a virtual tour here — Peter Doig — Courtauld Gallery Virtual Tour

• Paintings shown here are from the Courtauld Gallery exhibition and used purely to discuss the exhibition content. They are the property of Peter Doig and the Courtauld Gallery exhibition and not the author. @ May 2023
• **Some images discussed here are not illustrated.