Callum Innes

Edinburgh UK 1962, lives and works in Edinburgh

Exposed Painting Lamp Black
2011
oil on canvas
125 x 121 cm
2015.CI.09

Innes 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. The play between the additive and subtractive process, the making and unmaking, underlies this sophisticated body of work. You Tube: studio visit Callum Innes (TateShots)