ART-PRESENTATION: Callum Innes-With Curve
While figuration characterised his early work, since 1988 after a stay in Amsterdam Callum Innes has explored the language of abstract painting. His paintings are created through the application and removal of paint, a systematic layering and dissolving that has come to typify the artist’s practice. The compositional processes and material investigations have resulted in a number of variations upon a theme where the actions involved in one series are revisited and developed further in the next.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Sean Kelly Archive
Callum Innes in “With Curve” his solo exhibition at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York presents new paintings and works on paperfrom four different bodies of work, most of them are on presentation for the first time. The exhibition’s title is inspired by Innes’ newest series of paintings made on large-scale, asymmetric aluminum panels. The works are a subtle sculptural extension of the site-specific, monochromatic wall paintings Innes first created for his recent survey exhibition “I’ll Close My Eyes” (15/10/16-2/2/17) at the De Pont Museum. Each geometrically shaped painting is subtly distorted by an almost imperceptible curve on one or more sides. A related series of new pastel works on paper is on view adjacent to the panel works. Initially, these pieces may appear as straightforward, abstract rectangular compositions of flat color. In the front gallery, Innes continues his interrogation of bisected canvases with his series “Untitled Lamp Black Paintings”. Vertically split in half, he applies two separate colors across the entire surface and then fastidiously removes paint from one side. One half of the painting is left covered in a deep, resonant black whilst the other half is a smoky violet, or dark blue, pigment that has been intricately altered by the process. Intensely dark and brooding, these works combine Innes’ formal precision with a poetic, contemplative beauty. In the lower gallery are o presentation three new large-scale paintings from his “Exposed Paintings” series, in which the canvas is divided geometrically into painted areas, areas in which the paint has been dissolved, and areas of unpainted ground. Early examples in the series split the picture plane vertically, one half, a large block of color, is set against the other in which the artist has used turpentine to dissolve the same color back into the canvas. Attention is focused on the subtle variations in color and tone. As the series has progressed, Innes has complicated and developed the process: the latest sequence exploring the possibilities offered by dissolving violet into and against differing portions of black.
Info: Sean Kelly Gallery, 475 Tenth Avenue, New York, Duration: 17/3-29/4/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 11:00-18:00, Sat 10:00-18:00, www.skny.com
