Art Basel 2026

Callum Innes is known for luminous abstractions that push at the fundamentals of painting: pigment, surface and space. Composed of opaque sections juxtaposed with thin, translucent washes that appear almost permeable, his paintings invoke a dynamic conversation between presence and absence. 

Through this unique, spare vocabulary, Innes achieves a vast range of atmospheres and effects. He generally works in series, allowing his methods to build upon each other and evolve gradually while he works on several paintings at the same time. Innes's technique of creating a play between painting and un-painting, where sections of the painting have been washed away with turpentine, results in a shifting surface that evokes different registers of time.

'Pillow (Greek Marble)' is a sculpture of a pillow carved from a block of white marble veined in tones of sepia and grey. A depression marks the surface, as if left by a resting head, and it’s in this imprint – the point of contact with the human body – that a single ear is carved, taken from a cast of the artist’s friend’s ear. 

The work is based on Cross’s own childhood pillow which has been replicated in stone by the traditional carving system of points, using callipers to indicate the sculptural topography. The intricate and intimate beauty of this work recalls a funerary monument and invites meditation on the fragility of earthly existence. This hybrid, uncanny object seems to slip between the waking world and the stuff of dreams.

Cross is currently exhibiting her large marble piece Red Road as part of the Sydney Biennale, on until 14 June and another marble work Kneel at The Storytellers, Worcester College, Oxford, 1 May - 5 July.

Working across a range of mediums, Anna Barriball uses drawing to investigate how everyday objects and encounters can be reimagined or transformed in unexpected ways. 

Light, memory and the history of photography are some of the abiding themes in her practice; examining the effect of light as it passes through and around objects, casting fleeting shadows and evoking distinct atmospheres. Barriball is interested in trying to capture or document such moments and reflections in her drawings, conscious too of the physicality of the materials she employs.

This large-scale drawing adopts the size and proportions of a domestic doorway; a familiar threshold encountered in everyday life. The geometric forms originate from shadows cast by an open door onto the ceiling and the resulting image evokes an uncertain, liminal space between threshold and barrier. This sense of the drawing as a kind of membrane is reinforced by its material presence where layers of translucent hand-waxed paper, coloured with dusted chalk-pastel create a surface that is simultaneously fragile and tactile.

This piece is from a new series titled after the American band founded in the 1960s, whose members took the name from the classical elements (which play a big part in Apfelbaum's works creation). The individual pieces are made using a combination of unique, hand made glazes devised in the studio and ready made chips of coloured glass. 

Apfelbaum explains : ‘I started melting glass chips called 'smalties’ some years ago, after first buying a few from Ravenna. It was very exciting the different ways the glass and glaze reacted in the kiln: a kind of alchemy would happen creating beautiful patterns and effects, leaving these lush surfaces. I have used smalti from Turkey, Mexico and Italy, all have different chemical properties with varying reactions. I never know what I’m going to get... there are a lot of surprises.’