.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
In 'Repetition (Violet Grey)', Callum Innes brilliantly challenges the tradition of painting by questioning its classical making process. Innes' technique is reductive, and embodies the dissolution of colour, the blurring of the mark.
Covering the entire painting with monochrome violet surface, the artist has dissolved thin and regular vertical areas with turpentine. Therefore, the canvas literally emanates from the underneath, and is shown both as a different texture and as a different light-grey colour, granting the piece a monumental yet sensually refined bi-chromatic arrangement.
About his singular method, Innes has declared: 'My approach is quite minimalistic. Having placed one mark after another mark, very methodically, I use turpentine to dissolve it (...). I want emotion but I also want ambiguity.' (C. Innes, in 'Callum Innes', Zrich 1995.)
Covering the entire painting with monochrome violet surface, the artist has dissolved thin and regular vertical areas with turpentine. Therefore, the canvas literally emanates from the underneath, and is shown both as a different texture and as a different light-grey colour, granting the piece a monumental yet sensually refined bi-chromatic arrangement.
About his singular method, Innes has declared: 'My approach is quite minimalistic. Having placed one mark after another mark, very methodically, I use turpentine to dissolve it (...). I want emotion but I also want ambiguity.' (C. Innes, in 'Callum Innes', Zrich 1995.)