Over the past 10 years Innes has emerged as one of the most single minded and successful painters of his generation. His work has a very visible presence at the forefront of the international art world and hangs in many important museum collections worldwide from the Guggenheim Collection in New York to the National Gallery of Australia. And yet for all this international renown Innes has chosen to stay rooted in Edinburgh, and something about the light and clarity and quiet, controlled beauty of his work remains tied to the east coast of Scotland.
Innes' work, often made by layering different pigments onto the canvas and then removing layers of paint with washes of turpentine, has a simple contradiction at its heart; namely that something so apparently simple can have such a complex effect on the mind and eye. In his newest paintings there is a shift in weight and focus, recalling, in their basic shape and form, some of his earliest work, but with a new intensity born out of his continuing experiments with the limits to which he can push his medium. These paintings are often painted and 'un-painted' several times, with each 'hit' adding a new pigment and a greater depth. They are some of the most resonant and quietly moving paintings being made anywhere in the world today.
