Not many painters today can pull off what Peter Doig does so well. That is to say, who else but Peter Doig can resurrect antiquated painterly aesthetics such as Post-Impressionism, German Expressionism, and Magic Realism, without looking stuck in the past? Judging from his recent auction prices (roughly $10 million in February 2007), Doig seems to be filling a need for such works.

Sincerity is what we see on view in Doig’s most recent solo exhibition at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, also uptown at Michael Werner Gallery. It is the artist’s first solo show in the United States in nearly ten years, and in that time gap, a more refined artist has emerged. Born in 1959 in Scotland, Doig spent his adolescence in Canada and his professional art schooling in England before moving to Trinidad in 2002. His small-scale and large-scale paintings are known for harmonizing dichotomous abstraction / representation and reality / fantasy relationships. In this exhibition, Untitled (2007) and Moruga (2008) return to a familiar motif in Doig’s oeuvre of forlorn figures floating downstream in canoes. However, unlike past works, here Doig employs large, curvy swatches of dark color in combination with his more familiar evocative, dreamlike washes that are both quiet and unsettling in tone. 

My personal favorite in the exhibition, Portrait (Under Water), from 2007, encapsulates the poetic sensibility Doig, as an artist, displays through his delicate craft. It is a comparably small painting, measuring only 32 by 27 inches. Though not titled as a self-portrait, the figure in the painting closely resembles the artist. The painting depicts a bust of a man who is mostly under water, except for the tip of his bald head. The setting is familiar yet strange and distant at the same time – like a fading memory. His eyes are closed and his head lowered, forming a poetic and somber demeanor. There is something meditative about Portrait (Under Water) and in Peter Doig’s work as a whole, which is something very refreshing to see.

Images: Portrait (Under Water) (2008); Moruga (2008). Courtesy Gavin Brown Enterprises.