Painting on an Island (Carrera), Peter Doig (2019) (EMPIRE LINES x The Courtauld Gallery)

Curator Barnaby Wright transports us from the Courtauld Gallery in London, to the Caribbean island of Trinidad, as seen - and heard - by Peter Doig, one of Europe’s most highly valued contemporary painters.

Peter Doig’s vast figurative paintings pay homage to the many places where he has lived and practiced - though never really called home. Born in Edinburgh in 1959, his career has been characterised by constant travel and movement, and his status as Europe’s most expensive living artist. But his landscapes are layered in with multiple, and more popular, inspirations - like found photographs, films, and above all, music - settings which move between figuration and abstraction, actuality and the imagination.

Trinidad is perhaps the unlikely focus of the Courtauld Gallery’s new exhibition, which shows works painted since Doig’s recent return to London from the Caribbean, where he has lived since 2002. Mainstream art markets often prize Doig’s isolated Canadian mountain scenes, influenced by the likes of Edvard Munch, but here we see the artist as an active participant in Port of Spain’s local community, practicing with the BBC’s Boscoe Holder, poet Derek Walcott, and prisoners on the island of Carrera. Curator Dr. Barnaby Wright delves into Doig’s loving depictions of the Mighty Shadow, a titan of Trinidadian calypso and soca, why Carnival keeps him working all night, and how the self-portrayed ‘outsider’ both draws from - and challenges - exotifying gazes on non-European subjects from post-Impressionists like Paul Gauguin.

Peter Doig runs at the Courtauld Gallery in London until 29 May 2023.

WITH: Dr. Barnaby Wright, curator of Peter Doig. He is the Deputy Head of the Courtauld Gallery and Daniel Katz Curator of 20th Century Art.

ART: ‘Painting on an Island (Carrera), Peter Doig (2019)’.

PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.

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