Portrait of Callum Innes, 2026. Photograph: Ewan McClure.
Colour as Paul Klee famously put it is the place where our brain and the universe meet, which makes it sound like a thing with a concrete presence in the world. Science tells us otherwise however – colour has no physical form - without light, it cannot exist.
And yet, for a painter like Callum Innes, whose career over four decades has insistently explored the relationship between light and colour, there is inevitably an urge to understand colour as a tangible reality. And of course, the medium for this is paint, with pigment applied to canvas or paper and, in Innes’s hands, often then dissolved to leave a trace, as if lit from within.
In recent years Innes has also used light itself as a means to investigate colour in relation to architecture, with projects in Norway and Scotland made possible by the spectral range of electric light. But for this latest project in Edinburgh, Innes returns to an exploration of light, space and volume through coloured pigment in four massive wall paintings. Collectively they create an immersive installation that plays with architectural space and the natural light that floods the gallery in spring and early summer.
Alongside Innes’s site-specific installation, Ingleby will release a folded publication featuring four unique paintings and a new poem by Colm Tóibín.
And yet, for a painter like Callum Innes, whose career over four decades has insistently explored the relationship between light and colour, there is inevitably an urge to understand colour as a tangible reality. And of course, the medium for this is paint, with pigment applied to canvas or paper and, in Innes’s hands, often then dissolved to leave a trace, as if lit from within.
In recent years Innes has also used light itself as a means to investigate colour in relation to architecture, with projects in Norway and Scotland made possible by the spectral range of electric light. But for this latest project in Edinburgh, Innes returns to an exploration of light, space and volume through coloured pigment in four massive wall paintings. Collectively they create an immersive installation that plays with architectural space and the natural light that floods the gallery in spring and early summer.
Alongside Innes’s site-specific installation, Ingleby will release a folded publication featuring four unique paintings and a new poem by Colm Tóibín.
