Sean Kelly is pleased to announce Callum Innes’s exhibition Tondos, his eighth solo exhibition with the gallery, which introduces a remarkable new development in his oeuvre. The exhibition presents Innes’s iconic Exposed Paintings, Split Paintings and Shellac Paintings in an entirely new format. Made on plywood panels, these circular and oval paintings mark a dramatic departure from the artist’s rectangular format and invite a range of new interpretations, both psychologically and formally. The tondos, presented in the main gallery, will be accompanied by a group of new works on paper in the front gallery. The opening reception will take place on Thursday, November 3, from 6-8 pm. The artist will be present.
While his working methodology remains consistent—the repeated addition and removal of pigment in the Exposed Paintings and Split Paintings and the interaction of two different materials in the Shellac Paintings— these new paintings have necessitated a number of important evolutions in the way that Innes makes the work. Using a smaller, rounded brush the physicality of these paintings is completely different, allowing for more fluidity and enabling him to have more direct contact with the work. In particular, the oval Split Paintings emphasize the materiality of the work as the natural grain of the wood comes through on the exposed side of the painting, adding yet more layering and depth. Each of the works has a beveled edge, which returns from the surface at about a forty-five-degree angle. This plane gives the illusion that the exposed portions of the paintings are larger, changing our perceptions of light and space and emphasizing their circular shape, making for a very physical, object like presence.
As is the case with all of his paintings, in these new works Innes explores the boundaries between control and chaos. He has observed, “Chance is involved, but… it’s organized chance, because I’m controlling it the whole way,” remarking elsewhere that “the paintings are all about mark making; about human contact; about the physicality of standing in front of a painting.” This sensibility is also present in Innes’s works on paper, in the front gallery. Comprised of ethereal squares of complexly layered color painted with the dexterity and sensitivity for which the artist is known, the work’s visually charged edges reveal glimpses of the individual colors in their pure form, giving the viewer an understanding of how these layers of color interact to create the finished work.
Innes is as one of the most significant abstract painters of his generation, achieving widespread recognition in major solo and group shows worldwide. Innes was awarded the Jerwood Prize for Painting in 2002, and the Nat West Prize in 1998. In 1995 he was short listed for the Turner Prize. His work is included in significant public collections worldwide including: the Tate Gallery, London; the Kunstmuseum, Bern, Switzerland; the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Centre George Pompidou, Paris; The Irish Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Modern Art, Fort Worth; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada, amongst many others. In 2016, Innes was the subject of a major retrospective survey exhibition and accompanying monograph, I'll Close My Eyes, at the De Pont Museum in Tilburg, Netherlands.
