Calla McInnes presents a series of four Reclining Figures and two works on paper.
The exhibition takes its title from a 1992 Sadie Benning video work. The video is shot in black and white on a pixelvision toy camera, re-enacting a love story cast in Hollywood stereotypes. “It wasn't love, but it was something…” For Benning, this something is lust, violence, guilt, fantasy, and joy, channeled through role-playing.
Here this something exists in the space between rendering and erasure. The subject undergoes several transformations through being painted, ranging from careful attention, to effacement, to abstraction, to the point of annihilation.
Reclining Figure IV shows the subject in a more staged position. Indeed, the painting references Tintoretto's chalk study Reclining Male Figure, while also calling to mind Tischbein's portrait of Goethe or Spitzweg's Poor Poet. Through these art historical postures, the subject is stripped of individuality, becoming less lover than painting itself, aware of being seen.
– Charlotte Berg
Calla McInnes (b. 1998) is an artist living and working in Montréal. They hold a BFA from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (2020), and are currently an MFA candidate at Bard College, Annadale-on-Hudson, New York. Recent exhibitions include Chris Andrews, Montréal (2023, 2025), Shower, Seoul (2024), and Gated, New York (2022).
