
Callum Innes
Exposed Painting Blue Violet, 2019

One of Britain’s best known abstract painters, Callum Innes works in the language of monochrome painting, rendering color fields within geometric grids or dividing his canvases bilaterally. For his ongoing series of “Exposed Paintings”, Innes engages in a process of addition and subtraction, layering pigments onto the canvas, then removing the oil paint with washes of turpentine. This method, which he describes as “unpainting,” leaves only traces of the paint’s former color so that black oil paint erodes to reveal a deep violet or green, as in Exposed Painting Green Lake (2012). The artist’s process is evidenced through trickles of seeping paint, rivulets, and dark edges. Innes considers Barnett Newman to be a major influence on his work.


One of Britain’s best known abstract painters, Callum Innes works in the language of monochrome painting, rendering color fields within geometric grids or dividing his canvases bilaterally. For his ongoing series of “Exposed Paintings”, Innes engages in a process of addition and subtraction, layering pigments onto the canvas, then removing the oil paint with washes of turpentine. This method, which he describes as “unpainting,” leaves only traces of the paint’s former color so that black oil paint erodes to reveal a deep violet or green, as in Exposed Painting Green Lake (2012). The artist’s process is evidenced through trickles of seeping paint, rivulets, and dark edges. Innes considers Barnett Newman to be a major influence on his work.