About the work

The interplay between the additive and subtractive process, making and unmaking, presence and absence, constitutes the essence of the oeuvre developed by Callum Innes. He makes work in a number of different ways, all of which are gradually evolving. The shifts that appear from one series to the next are rarely dramatic, but each new painting builds on those that have gone before in a subtle but constant progression. His characteristic form of coolly atmospheric abstraction has aptly been described as ‘unpainting’, given that key compositional elements are generally produced, not by the application of paint, but through its removal by washes of turpentine. Each finished painting thus suggests a freezing in time of the otherwise momentary arrest of an ongoing process. 

Date and country of birth

1962, GB

About the artist

Born 1962 Edinburgh, Callum Innes lives and works in Edinburgh and Oslo. Graduated from Grays School of Art (1984), and Post Graduate Diploma at Edinburgh College of Art (1985).

Innes tends to work alternately on a number of disparate series, each of which he repeatedly revisits. In his Exposed Paintings a single color, mixed by the artist, is brushed on to the canvas. Turpentine is then repeatedly applied by brush to remove the paint before it begins to dry. Innes washes away or, as he has described it, “unpaints” the canvas, leaving all but the faintest vestigial traces of color. The result reveals varied veils of color buried within the seemingly monochromatic single pigment. Each finished painting thus suggests a freezing in time of the otherwise momentary arrest of an ongoing process. The play between the additive and subtractive process, the making and unmaking, underlies this sophisticated body of work.

His work is held in public collections including the Guggenheim, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Fort Worth Museum, Texas; Tate, London; and Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.

Selected exhibitions include A PURE LAND, OSL Contemporary, Oslo (2021); Keeping Time, Frith Street Gallery, London (2019); Byzantine Blue, Delft Blue, Paris Blue, Ingleby, Edinburgh (2018); In Position, Chateau La Coste, France (2018); Callum Innes: With Curve, Sean Kelly, New York (2017); Callum Innes: I’llClose my Eyes, De Pont Museum, Tilburg (2016); Callum Innes: an installation, Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2010); From Memory, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2008); Callum Innes, Tate, St Ives (2005); The Turner Prize, Tate, London (1995); Callum Innes, ICA, London (1992); and Callum Innes, Frith Street Gallery, London (1990)

Awards include the Jerwood Prize for Painting (2002), and the NatWest Art Prize (1998).