Callum Innes

Callum Innes is an artist renowned for his abstract paintings, which embody a powerful tension between control and fluidity.

Biography of Callum Innes

Callum Innes was born in 1962 in Edinburgh, Scotland. From 1980 to 1984, he studied at Grays School of Art in Aberdeen. Innes continued his education, and in 1985, he graduated from Edinburgh College of Art.

Innes started exhibiting his works in the mid-to-late 1980s. In 1992, he held two significant exhibitions in public galleries: one at the ICA, London, and the other at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. Since then, he has continued to showcase his art through numerous solo exhibitions across Britain, Europe, North America, New Zealand, and Asia.

His notable solo shows include "Callum Innes: Exposed Paintings" at Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland (2001); "Discourse" at Frith Street Gallery in London (2007); "From Memory" at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney (2008); "Watercolour" at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York (2010); "Callum Innes: Works on Paper 1989–2012" at Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh (2012); "Callum Innes, Prints 2005 - 2019" at Edinburgh Printmakers, Edinburgh, and many more. 

Callum Innes has participated in many group shows, including "Painting Alone," Pace Gallery, New York (1991); "On The Edge of The Western World," Invisible Museum, London, and Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (2000); Liverpool Biennial, The Tea Factory, Liverpool (2004); "Within / Beyond Borders," Byzantine & Christian Museum, Athens (2011); "Chromophobia," Gagosian Gallery, Geneva (2015); "Abstract By Nature," Sean Kelly Gallery, NYC (2019); "Une histoire de famille / A family story," Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, Lyon (2022), among others.

In 1995, Callum Innes was shortlisted for the Turner Prize. In 1998, he won the NatWest Art Prize, and in 2002, he received the Jerwood Painting Prize and the Artisti Invitati Al Premio Internazionale.

Currently, the artist lives and works in Oslo, Norway and Edinburgh, Scotland.

Callum Innes' Art Style

Dissolution lies at the heart of Callum Innes' art practice: he applies layers of deep pigments and then brushes them over with turpentine, breaking down sections of paint and leaving behind watery, trace elements, only to be painted over once more.

He repeats the process of painting, dissolving, and repainting multiple times, building depth and a sense of history within his works. Oblique panels of dense pigments become embedded and strengthened, while delicate trickles or rivulets of liquefied paint reveal their underlying fragility. This meticulous approach to materials extends to the artist's watercolors and pastels, where pigment is meticulously built up into velveteen layers.

While Innes's works may appear minimal or geometric at first glance, they are, in fact, always slightly "off-kilter," characterized by imperfectly drawn lines and slightly softened shapes. The interplay of fallibility and humanity, juxtaposed with the artist's skill and precision as a painter, gives rise to works of profound poetic and contemplative power. This firmly establishes Innes as one of the most significant abstract painters of his generation.