Depicting a harlequin-dressed skier atop an icy mountain, in Alpinist, Peter Doig invokes a specific sense of place by featuring the distinctive peak of the Swiss Matterhorn, looming over a deep, snow-covered valley. As is characteristic of Doig’s image-making, the mood of the work rests on a knife-edge. The mountain itself is depicted half in bright sunlight and half in a foreboding shade, with the lone skier, while nonetheless providing a joyful moment of exuberant colour, carrying crimson red skis in a suggestive cross shape on their back.