Exposed Painting Green Lake

Two fields of color meet head-on in this painting, and the contrast is the whole point. To the left, a solid rectangle of near-black holds firm and heavy. To the right, a luminous green glows and fades, drifting from vivid at the top to a softer, murkier tone below, a little like light sinking through the water of a shaded pond. The title, Green Lake, nods to exactly that watery feeling. Scottish artist Callum Innes created this piece as part of his long-running "Exposed Paintings" series, and the word "exposed" hints at his unusual method. He does not just paint. He layers color, then dissolves parts of it away with turpentine, letting the washing-out reveal what sits beneath.

Those faint streaks and drips in the green are not slip-ups. They are the fingerprints of that removal process, the record of paint being taken off rather than laid on. Innes has built his career on this back-and-forth between adding and erasing, a balance of tight control and happy accident, since turpentine tends to wander where it pleases. Shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1995, he helped bring this patient, stripped-back kind of abstraction wider attention. The crisp line where dark meets green speaks to his discipline, while the soft bleeding at the edges is a reminder that the material always keeps a little say of its own.