Combining surreal narratives and fluid, biomorphic shapes, Inka Essenhigh creates dreamlike landscapes in her enamel and oil paintings.
Read MoreInka Essenhigh received a BFA from the Columbus College of Art & Design, Ohio (1992), and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York (1994). Her works from the mid-1990s and early 2000s were painted with enamel. They are recognisable by their flat planes of colour and dynamic, biomorphic shapes such as those found in Born Again (1999—2000).
Essenhigh began to garner critical attention with her solo exhibitions at Stefan Stux Gallery (1998) and Deitch Projects (1999), both in New York. The dreamlike imagery of her paintings drew comparisons with Surrealism, which her work was also aligned with as a result of her use of automatic drawing. However, as the artist told Tikkun in 2019, she did not attempt to shock people in the way the Surrealists did, but instead was 'always trying to make something pleasurable.'
Throughout her practice, Inka Essenhigh has primarily worked with enamel and oil paints. She transitioned from enamel to oil between 2001 and 2002, following her newly found interest in the physicality of oil and its potential for creating depth.
Consequently, Essenhigh's paintings moved away from the airiness of her early enamel paintings. Holly Hobby (1997), for example, shows pink, abstract figures that appear to be floating against a completely flat, red background. The oil painting Arrows of Fear (2002), by comparison, retains Essenhigh's sinuous figures and their sense of dynamism, but establishes dimension and weight through sectioning off the flat ground into walls and a floor.
Essenhigh returned to enamel in the mid-2010s, imbuing her canvases with a lighter atmosphere while subtly suggesting a variety of space and texture. White and grey figures almost dissolve into the monochrome background in Grey Men (2015), for example, but shadows and visible brushstrokes break the smooth flatness of the surface.
While Inka Essenhigh's otherworldly imagery attracts associations with Surrealism, the artist told Schirn Magazine in 2020 that she prefers to see her paintings as being closer to Symbolism. She continues to portray the enjoyable; there may be a suggestion of an omen in the lonely trees in Spruce or City Trees, but the gathering of mysterious creatures in Fairy Procession (all 2016) exudes warmth and delight.
UtopiaIn Uchronia, a solo exhibition at Chicago's Kavi Gupta Gallery in 2019, Inka Essenigh explored a utopian future in canvases that imply an underlying presence of violence or apocalypse. Plants have invaded the house in Living Room 2600 C.E. (2019), which is occupied by amorphous human figures; in welcome to the Gather-N-Hunt, a family restaurant, 3500 C.E. (2018), lithe figures reminiscent of those found on ancient Greek vases or in Matisse's paintings frolic in an idyllic landscape. The canvas in welcome, however, appears fragmented on the fringes, as if to suggest that what is on view is only part of a whole narrative.
Inka Essenhigh exhibits internationally. Her solo exhibitions include Inka Essenhigh, Victoria Miro, Venice (2021); Inka Essenhigh, Miles McEnery Gallery, New York (2020); Other Worlds: Inka Essenhigh, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (2019); Uchronia, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago (2019); A Fine Line, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, and Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Michigan (2018); Stars and Flowers, Baldwin Gallery, Aspen (2015); Inka Essenhigh, Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo (2012); and The Old New Age, 303 Gallery, New York (2010), among others.
Selected group exhibitions include Really., Miles Energy Gallery, New York (2020); Le Nuove Frontiere della Pittura, Fondazione Stelline, Milan (2018); Disturbing Innocence, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York (2014); The Golden Ass, Blindarte Contemporanea, Naples (2013); Comic Abstraction: Image-Breaking, Image-Making, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (2007); and Motion on Paper, Ben Brown Fine Arts, London (2006).
Inka Essenhigh's website can be found here, and her Instagram can be found here.
Sherry Paik | Ocula | 2021
