HETTIE INNISS

Inniss is a British Caribbean artist whose work responds to multisensory influences and bodily experiences, capturing and preserving a moment inflected by scent, light, sound and memory. A recent graduate from the Painting MA course at the Royal College of Art, London (UK), Inniss was awarded the Sir Frank Bowling Scholarship in 2022. Inniss is an artist whose practice questions the stability of self. Her distinctive canvases seek to create spaces with their own physics, their own truths and their own multidimensional perspectives.

Inniss’ vibrant color palette allows her to articulate memory and the act of remembering – capturing the afterburn of an image or the light seen behind closed eyes with a warmth and physicality that brings a bodily presence into her canvases. Working from her involuntary memories, Inniss takes a Proustian approach to making, focusing on the unexpected moments where our senses are stimulated and the mind transports us to familiar or uncanny spaces. The senses aid her orientation of the materials; exploring, for example, how a memory might taste or sound, and how the application of paint can reflect those sensations. This intimate practice allows Inniss to combat rigid ideas of representation, advocating for Black Fluidity as a more liberating way of being.