Horizon Suite, presented at Chris Andrews, is a solo exhibition of new works by Montréal-based artist Calla McInnes. The included drawings and paintings trace the artist’s recurring interest in collapsing the image plane – perspective and peripheral space compress into a harmonic singular surface. The laboured images are conceived in many thin washes of oil, or in the drawings, layers of graphite, slowly rendering panoramic-like compositions of text, figures, and abstracted forms. Their worked surfaces often depict silhouetted subjects, turned from the viewer’s gaze.
A series of paintings in a multi-tiered frame hangs in the gallery’s back corner. The wood frame rails have been elongated, adjoining each work to the next and previous. Across from these, a portrait hangs in an enclave. The subject of the painting shares the foreground with a patterned pillow that appears well-lived, as do many of the art objects which comprise the whole of Horizon Suite, each highly touched in their process of becoming.
Calla McInnes (b. 1998) is an artist living and working in Montréal. They graduated from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 2020. Their recent projects include an exhibition at Gated, New York, NY, the group exhibition “May My Fiction Rule” (2022) at Chris Andrews, Montréal, Québec, and residencies at Céline Bureau and n.10.as Radio, both Montréal, Québec.