Callum Innes | a pure land | Opening Friday 16 April 2021

Comunicato Stampa disponibile solo in lingua originale. 

i8 Gallery and OSL contemporary are pleased to announce a pure land, a solo exhibition by Callum Innes. The show comprises a group of fifty watercolours constituting a single, major work by the artist. a pure land is presented collaboratively by i8 and OSL; this marks the artist’s third show with each gallery. The exhibition is on view 16 April to 29 May at i8 in Reykjavík, after having been presented at OSL in Oslo in February and March.

Watercolour has been an integral part of Innes’s practice for several decades, and the artist cites its luminosity as the reason he continually returns to the medium. Innes eschews the looseness and quickness often inherent to watercolour, instead relying on his methodic style of painting to explore the possibilities of colour and form. As is common for the artist, these works possess a harmony between simplicity and complexity, as well as control and chance.

In creating the watercolours, Innes delineates a rectangular area on white paper and applies a single colour using a wide brush. As that dries, he adds a second colour over the first, then begins a process of removing and applying pigment from the composition. The resulting work is largely monochromatic, yet there are subtle gradations between the hues and remnants of the artist’s brushstrokes. Bold, off-register edges reveal the original two colours Innes used and offer a glimpse into the transformation as pigment was added and subtracted.

Innes made these fifty watercolours in his Oslo studio, where he has been working since early 2020, and this is the second-ever group to be designated as a single work. When viewed collectively, the variations in combinations highlight the complexity and depth of exploration within the series. The delicate subtleties possible with this medium, such as bleeding edges and veiled colours, invite intimate viewing, and the artist’s rigorous study of light and colour is particularly powerful when experienced en masse. A publication, also titled a pure land, was published in February in conjunction with the exhibitions. The book includes reproductions of the fifty watercolours, and features a new poem by Thomas A. Clark, which was written in response to Innes’s works.