Inka Essenhigh facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Inka Essenhigh
Essenhigh in 2005
Born	1969 Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, US
Alma mater	Columbus College of Art and Design, School of Visual Arts
Known for	Painting, printmaking
Movement	Pop Surrealism, New Figuration, Comic Abstraction
Spouse(s)	Steve Mumford

Inka Essenhigh (born 1969) is an American painter who lives and works in New York City. She is known for her unique style that mixes real-looking figures with abstract shapes and bright colors. Her art often looks like it's from another world, sometimes like cartoons or dreams. Inka Essenhigh has shown her paintings in many famous art galleries around the world, including New York, Tokyo, and Venice.

Education and Teaching

Inka Essenhigh finished high school in Upper Arlington. She then went to the Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio, graduating in 1991. After that, she earned a special art degree called a Master of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York, from 1992 to 1994. Besides creating her own art, she has also taught art at the New York Academy of Art. She was also a "Master Artist" at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, helping other artists learn and grow.

Her Art and Style

In the mid-1990s, Inka Essenhigh was one of the first American artists to start painting recognizable things again. This is called "figuration." Before that, many artists were focused on "abstraction," which means art that doesn't show real objects.

Her paintings can look very flat or show a lot of depth, like you can almost step into them. She often mixes abstract shapes with figures, going back and forth between these two styles. In the late 1990s, her work became very popular. People sometimes called her early art "Pop Surrealism." This is because her paintings had strange, cartoon-like figures and simple, flat colors, like something from a dream mixed with pop culture. She was even part of an important art show called "Pop Surrealism" in 1998.

Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2017, enamel on canvas.

About ten years later, her art was featured in another important show at The Museum of Modern Art called "Comic Abstraction" in 2007. This show explored how artists use ideas from comics in abstract art.

Around the mid-2000s, Essenhigh changed her painting style and the materials she used. She used to paint with very flat enamel paints in the 1990s. But then she started using oil paints, which allowed for more soft and dreamy effects.

Spring, 2006, oil on canvas, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

She explained that she wanted to try something new and modern, so she used enamel paints. These paints give a smooth, bright, and flat look. Later, she went back to using enamel paints, but she found a way to make them look like her oil paintings, keeping the beautiful light effects. You can see this in her painting Midsummer Night’s Dream from 2017.

Born Again, 1999, Enamel on Canvas, from the Tate Modern collection.

In the past, Essenhigh sometimes used "automatic drawing." This is like doodling without thinking, letting your hand move freely. But now, her art tells a more clear story. She wants to create the world she imagines.

Her paintings often include themes like old myths, landscapes, and the difference between city life and nature. She doesn't limit herself to just one topic. She blends abstract and real figures to explore ideas about our minds and things beyond what we can see.

Deluge, 1998, oil enamel on canvas, at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

An art writer named Peter Malone said that Essenhigh's art mixes figures with designs, abstract ideas with stories, and feelings with humor. Essenhigh herself says she thinks about the common stories we tell. She believes that stories can change how we think. She wants her paintings to make people feel like other worlds are possible.

In 2018, Inka Essenhigh created a large mural at The Drawing Center in New York. She also had two solo art shows that year. One was at the Miles McEnery Gallery in New York. The other was a special show called "A Fine Line" at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, which later traveled to the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. A book about her art was published along with this exhibition.

Where to See Her Art

Inka Essenhigh's art is part of the permanent collections in many museums. This means her paintings are owned by these museums and can be seen by the public. Some of these museums include:

• Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
• Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
• Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL
• Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
• Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
• Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
• Tate Modern, London, England
• Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.

Selected Exhibitions

Here are some of the places where Inka Essenhigh's art has been shown:

• 2019 “A Fine Line,” Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI.
• 2018 "Manhattanhenge," The Drawing Center, New York, NY.
• 2018 “A Fine Line,” Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA.
• 2018 Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.
• 2016 “Between Worlds,” Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN.
• 2015 "The Ukrainian Diaspora: Women Artists 1908–2015." The Ukrainian Museum, New York, NY.
• 2007 "Comic Abstraction: Image-Breaking, Image-Making." Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY.
• 1999 "American Landscape: Recent Paintings by Inka Essenhigh," Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY.
• 1998 "Pop Surrealism," Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT.

Explore Her Works

You can see more of Inka Essenhigh's art online:

• Spring, 2006, Oil on Canvas at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art
• Collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art
• Collection at the Museum of Modern Art
• Installation at the Drawing Center
• Artist's Website