Cadmium Orange Red Violet Lamp Black
Callum Innes
Callum Innes. Foto: Lasse Fløde
Light and landscape, control and chaos:
Callum Innes (b. 1962) is considered one of the most significant abstract painters of his generation. The Scottish artist lives and works in both Edinburgh and Oslo.
Callum Innes has been nominated for the Turner Prize, and his works are housed in several important collections and museums such as the Guggenheim in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Tate Modern in London, and the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh.
In the Tower Room at Lysverket, Callum Innes presents a selection of works chosen and created specifically for this space. His two new site-specific works, Wall Painting Cadmium Orange and Wall Painting Red Violet, are presented alongside a selection of oil paintings and a series of 40 watercolors.
About one of the works, the artist says the following:
I will show a new "Monologue" painting: This comes from a series I made 15 years ago, which I have recently returned to. They use exploration of process, layering, and the transformative nature of paint. They come from a body of work which deal with paintings having their own intrinsic history. They are about a formed landscape and I felt it was appropriate for Bergen – as the meaning in English is Mountain.
Callum Innes. Foto: Lasse Fløde
The watercolours deal with light and internal space (...). The works will be installed in a salon style giving each work its own space. To frame the works I have asked the poet Tom Clark to write me three syllable poems, which will be placed within the installation.
Callum Innes. Foto: Lasse Fløde
About the artist
Callum Innes work can be seen as an on-going exploration into the possibilities of painting, aware, but uninhibited by the history of the medium.
Using the language of the monochrome, his paintings are created through a process of addition and subtraction, painting and “un-painting” by removing sections of colour from the canvas with turpentine.
In all his work Innes brings the potential of alchemy to abstract painting, holding a line between control and chaos.
Most known for his oil paintings on canvas, Innes has worked in parallel with exquisite series of works on paper, as well as lightinstallations.
The exhibition and installation takes place inside and out the facade of Lysverket.