What You Need to Know: In Naples, Italy, Alfonso Artiaco is currently presenting “Callum Innes: Darker Than Blue,” the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. On view through November 2, 2024, the show features 13 new works, both medium- and large-scale, that showcase Innes’s interrogation of color, shape, and technique. The works on view are composed of two primary series, the “Exposed Paintings” and “Tondos,” with the former based on square linen canvas and the latter on plywood. Set against the backdrop of Alfonso Artiaco’s historic gallery spaces, the exhibition offers a unique viewing experience for visitors, as perspective and perception of the compositions dialogue with the space.

Installation view of “Callum Innes: Darker Than Blue” (2024). Photo: Grafiluce. Courtesy of Alfonso Artiaco, Napoli.

About the Artist: Scottish artist Callum Innes (b. 1962), who lives and works in his hometown of Edinburgh, is recognized for his explorative abstract paintings that leverage the basic tenets of the medium to create atmospheric compositions that defy easy understandings. A graduate of the Edinburgh College of Art, where he received his M.F.A. in 1985, Innes received early recognition with two major exhibitions in 1992, at the ICA, London, and Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, respectively. Three years later, he was shortlisted for the prestigious Turner Prize, bringing his work and practice to an international audience. Today, his work can be found within numerous important collections worldwide, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and British Museum, just to name a few.

Installation view of “Callum Innes: Darker Than Blue” (2024). Photo: Grafiluce. Courtesy of Alfonso Artiaco, Napoli.

Why We Like It: Though devoid of representation or renderings of perspectival space, Innes’s paintings similarly contain a degree of visual intrigue that draws the viewer in, as the variously layered or thinned planes of color convey a sense of atmosphere and environment. Innes’s penchant for juxtaposing highly saturated, opaque swathes of pigment with those that are diffuse and almost watercolor-like, revealing brushstrokes and discordant lines creates a visual space akin to reality, producing questions around the nature of perception. With the artist’s newer “Tondos” beside his recognizable “Exposed Paintings,” the show also aptly puts forth considerations not only around the nature of painting—for which he is best known—but Innes’s practice itself, and the trajectory his artistic line of inquiry has taken him.

Installation view of “Callum Innes: Darker Than Blue” (2024). Photo: Grafiluce. Courtesy of Alfonso Artiaco, Napoli.

“Callum Innes: Darker Than Blue” is on view at Alfonso Artiaco, Naples, through November 2, 2024.

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