They are a sort of scaffolding, around which is constructed a painted world, which draws on the physical qualities of paint, on the painting process, and on the history of painting as it is represented in the work of antecedents such as Gauguin, Cézanne and Van Gogh – all richly represented in the Courtauld’s permanent collection. Like Night Bathers, most of the paintings here are infused with the essence of real places, specifically Trinidad, London and Canada, which are all part of the artist’s peripatetic biography. By transferring this real-life miracle to a scene of dreamlike unreality, the Scottish painter honours it deeply. Night Bathers (2011-19), in the first room of the Courtauld Gallery’s exhibition of 12 new works, is set at Trinidad’s Maracas Bay, its moonlit beach bathed in a wash of lemon and apricot inspired by the nocturnal phosphorescence of marine organisms. But even his most otherworldly creations take their cue from reality. Peter Doig never paints “real spaces – only painted spaces”.
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