Reykjavík Grapevine - 16.06.2016, Page 46

“Icelandic singer-songwriter Mugison already has a reputation
abroad for bleak magic, on record and in solo appearances..”
“This is Beck on an Iceberg,
Björk with a headache
..a towering talent”
“Mugison is Tom Waits
harmonising with Will
Oldham, and all the vistas
Beck is supposed to
suggest shoot up.”
Mugison
performs his own songs both in
English and Icelandic
VERY MANY TIMES A WEEK
LENGTH
60
MIN
STARTS
8:30
PM
PRICE
25
EURO
TALK ING WILL BE 96% IN ENGL ISH BETWEEN SONGS
OPEN 7-21
BREAKFAST,
LUNCH & DINNER
T EMPL AR A SUND 3 , 101 RE Y K JAV ÍK , T EL : 5711822, W W W.BERGSSON. IS
Art Street46
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 8 — 2016
Callum Innes sits in the lounge
area of the i8 Gallery, looking at a
flyer while he thinks. He picks up
a pen, and unconsciously press-
es it to the card, about a third of
the way in from the left edge. He
moves the pen to the centre, and
tilts his head slightly, regarding
the flyer, now split in two by his
line. He shifts the pen to the right
edge, then shifts in his seat un-
comfortably.
“Therapeutic?” he says, in a
softly spoken, Scottish-accented
voice. “I wouldn’t say painting is
therapeutic, no.”
Based in Edinburgh, Callum
has been painting for over thirty
years. He maintains regular hours
in his studio, going in every day at
8am, eating lunch with his staff,
then staying until 7:30 at night,
lending a quotidian aspect to his
practise that encompasses its high
and lows.
“There are moments in which
you’re very happy, and you’re
high,” he says. “But there are also
painful moments, when you work
on something for a day, then de-
stroy it. Sometimes it’s boring!
But I wouldn’t say it’s therapeutic.
I used to teach a lot, so I know that
artists come to art for many dif-
ferent reasons. But... it’s what I do,
it’s as simple as that.”
Callum’s style has varied widely
within his artform, from making
hundreds of squares of waterco-
lour on paper, to white canvases
combed by brush marks, to the
natural irregular geometry of drip
painting. But he’s perhaps best
known for making differently con-
figured oblongs of colour, often
with the paint applied and then re-
moved with turpentine in an act of
“unpainting.”
His latest show at i8 combines
work in several of these styles. “I
make many series of works,” he
explains, “so it’s quite interesting
for me putting new work next to
things I made two or three or four
years ago, and seeing how they sit.
I really enjoy standing in the gal-
lery and putting a show together.
That’s when it’s really formed—
when you make editing decisions,
and see it in a different light, out-
side the studio.”
A space in time
I wonder how Callum feels, having
been painting for three decades,
about how abstract art has been
affected by the general accelera-
tion of culture.
“That question starts to get po-
litical,” he says. “I live and work in
Scotland—we’re tellers of stories,
and not a visual culture. It’s dif-
ficult to survive as an artist, and
especially for young artists. Every-
thing starts with culture, whether
it’s writing, philosophy, theatre, or
visual art. That’s a very important
thing to realise, and possibly for
governments to realise.”
“I don’t know how my work fits
into it all,” he finishes, thought-
fully. “Maybe there’s a sense of a
space in time—an opportunity
just to pause. I think that’s really
important. The proliferation of
culture is fast, fast, fast. And if you
can create something that slows it
down for a second or two—that’s
nice.”
Callum Innes is showing at i8 on
Tryggvagata from June 9 until Au-
gust 6 2016.
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A Moment’s Pause
“The proliferation of culture is fast,
fast, fast. And if you can create something that
slows it down for second—that’s nice.”
Words JOHN ROGERS Photo ART BICNICK