The Easel

Stroke of genius: Peter Doig’s eerie art whisks the mind to enchanted places

With a highly regarded exhibition running in Venice and his work claiming record prices at auction last week, Peter Doig’s reputation grows ever more illustrious. This essay gives some background to the British//Trinidadian artist and the symbolism of canoes. He is “the painter of the global age, a traveller without a destination, between cultures, between jobs, looking for paradise and finding a prison on the horizon.”