Ingrid Calame’s current exhibition at the Fruitmarket Gallery prompts thorough reconsideration of the ground we walk on. A collection of drawings and paintings, Calame’s artwork offers an illuminating perspective of the world around us.

The artistic process behind Calame’s work is an essential part of the exhibition. Tracings of cracks, spills and marks from certain areas of ground are then used to create all sorts of layered and complex “constellations”, as Calame refers to them, in the form of paintings and drawings. The works largely feature organic forms, as well as numbers, graffiti tags, and other man-made imprints.

Walking into the exhibition the viewer meets the impressive sspspss…UM biddle BOP (1997) which stretches across the ground and up the wall. A work of pale green paint on trace Mylar paper, it offers a helpful introduction to Calame’s work. It starts on the floor echoing her process of tracing the ground and then continues upwards, placing it on the gallery wall.

Moving around the gallery, it’s hard not to try and decipher the shapes of each composition. Similarly, titles such as Vu-eyp? Vu-eyp? Vueyp? Vu-eyp? (2002) provoke the brain. Soon enough, however, the unique visual language and thought behind these works prevails and the mind soon enters Calame’s world.

Some pieces name specific sites, such as #346 Drawing (Tracing from the Perry Street Projects Wading Pool, Buffalo, NY) (2011), reminding that these works stem from real places. Many of these feel like they’re telling an unknown story, as these areas of ground are focused on with an intensity unlikely done before.

The highlight is a work commissioned by the Fruitmarket. L.A. River at Clearwater Street, 2006-8 (2011) occupies a whole wall from floor to ceiling and was made through “pouncing”; a process where Calame pounded bags of pigment onto the gallery wall through small holes made in a large transfer drawing. It is quite beautiful: intricate, light and fluid, it looks like a wonderful, colourful map – which in many ways it is.

Even if some works start to become a little samey, Calame’s work is refreshing and creates a thoughtful and visually enjoyable exhibition. As her first solo show in Scotland, this offers an opportunity to explore Calame’s intriguing artwork.

Three Stars