Inka Essenhigh

Inka Essenhigh’s paintings seduce and disarm in equal measure. Each work is a complete world in itself, impeccably realised, governed by its own logic and in possession of its own narrative. Each has its own ecology and its protagonists. Each radiates its own particular quality of light. We recognise aspects of these works implicitly. Yet, locating Essenhigh’s painting in time and place has always been part of its challenge and its allure.

The artist paints using enamel on canvas, its sheen for her representing freedom from the weight of history. However, precisely in its delicacy, its lack of ‘weight’, there lies an undeniable authority. Like the seventeenth-century still life painters, Essenhigh’s facility confers a kind of factual status on whatever she describes – whether animal, vegetable, or mineral and however removed from reality it might at first appear.

At the same time, her virtuoso line – economical and suggestive, full of whiplashes and arabesques – creates a fluid dance within and between her motifs that seems to accentuate a hidden psychological aspect. How paintings work themselves into our psyche so profoundly that we see the world through them as much as we recognise the world in them is perhaps Essenhigh’s overarching concern. Her paintings on one level stand for a blooming consciousness. They prime the senses, heighten awareness, intoxicate and transport, and in doing so awaken in us the desire to look further, question more. We unfurl before them.

About the Artist

Born in 1969, Inka Essenhigh lives and works in New York.

Recent solo institutional exhibitions include Other Worlds: Inka Essenhigh, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA (2019); Inka Essenhigh: A Fine Line, MOCA Virginia, Virginia Beach, USA (2018) travelling to Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Michigan, USA (2019); Inka Essenhigh: Manhattanhenge, Drawing Centre, New York, USA (2018).

Her work has been exhibited internationally as part of group exhibitions at venues including Karma, Thomaston, Maine, USA (2024); Speed Art Museum, Louisville, USA; Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, USA (2023); the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, Maine, USA (2020); USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL, USA (2020); American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, USA (2019); Fondazione Stelline, Milan, Italy (2018); the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, USA (2016 and 2012); Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, USA (2013); Dayton Art Institute, OH, USA (2011); Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, USA (2011); Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA (2007); The Royal Academy of Art, London, UK (2006); Domus Artium 2, Salamanca, Spain (2005); São Paulo Biennale, Brazil (2004); Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, USA (2003) and the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, UK (2003).

Essenhigh’s work is in the collections of major museums including Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New York, USA; Denver Art Museum; Denver, USA; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, USA; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, USA; Museum of Modern Art / P.S.1 Center for Contemporary Art, New York, USA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA; Seattle Art Museum, USA; Tate, London, UK; Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, USA and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA.