Peter Doig's portals to mythic worlds now at Michael Werner Gallery

HYPERALLERGIC
By Carey Dunne

Peter Doig, “Horse and Rider,” oil on canvas (2014) (all images courtesy Michael Werner Gallery)

NEW YORK---A lion with a blue-plumed pirate hat, an obsidian nude with her face blacked out, a mysterious rider on horseback — the settings and characters in Peter Doig’s newest paintings, now on view at Michael Werner Gallery, are at once strange and somehow totally familiar, like scenes from myths or dreams. All too rare in the modern art world is Doig’s lack of pretense, his embrace of vibrant color and the physicality of paint, and his childlike wonder. He’s the perfect antidote to the Koons-ification of the commercial art industry, which threatens to crush itself to death with a clone army of “balloon dogs.” [link]

Peter Doig, “Spearfishing” (2013), oil on linen