WRITINGS

Doing the Good that We Would

Michael Kimmelman and Inka Essenhigh

Guston's Last Laugh

Currin’s Blade

The Good that We Would

There is an egregious poverty in the psyche of our pampered society. A callous disregard for the graces of spirit. We turn our backs on the fragile flowers of what is left of them. We walk away swinging out our arms in overblown movements, looking at our watches in an affectation of hurry while promising due considerations not now but later. Always later. Yet, the opportunity for grace is there, in us, waiting, still. The chance for survival, for resolution, is afloat because love isn’t stagnate. It yearns.

Recently, in the New York Times Magazine, Michael Kimmelman relayed again the news about painter Inka Essenhigh’s sudden rise to fame and the obsession with her "photogenic face splashed on the pages of glossy magazines." Beyond this and reiterating the pitch of the gallery’s press release, precious little space was devoted to a serious consideration of her work. What we got, mostly, was another full page photograph of her lovely face, a photo of her bare foot on a paint laden floor, one, too, of her hand holding a brush and, finally, a small reproduction of a painting. Her style was described, in conjunction with the photograph of her person, as "kinky", "lush and louche." Her art was represented as "flirting brazenly with kitsch," testing the "fine, fascinating line between beauty and bad taste." Flirting brazenly with kitsch, it seems, was also the aim of this review. It was a puff piece, scantily clad and not so fascinating. I suppose one could argue the article was not meant to be anything more. This is probably true, but sadly so. Sadly, because one more piece of puff is one further disregard of why we’re here and one more disinclination to tackle the more pressing issues at hand. Like, why does this artist paint what she does and what does it mean for us?

Often an artist’s work is described without attention paid to the possible meanings inherent in the imagery, be it abstract or not. Style is put ahead of philosophy. Besides the usual banter about the work of Essenhigh’s relationship to cartooning there are other more pressing issues to consider. She has created a mythology. A world not simply of "loopy" and "sinister" "hybrid creatures" or "humanoid techno-blobs" decorating a flat field. But, rather, personal demons turned in upon themselves struggling with their inner turmoils. They are addicts. Tortured and immune to the beauty and suffering around them, so focused are they on their own horrors. In one recent painting, a woman reclines on a tower of mattresses with t.v. remote control in hand. The warriors of her conscience threaten to pull her apart if she does not rise from her stupor. In her resistance to live she is gruesomely warped. A predicament of our own society, exactly. And a dangerously insidious one. This quote from Romans comes to mind: "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do... who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" The artist is concerned with far more than pop stylizations, here. Far more than the flirtations between high and low art. Essenhigh traces the battles we contain in our own consciousness. These battles, these paintings and this artist deserve more respectful attention.

Upon leaving Essenhigh’s opening an art dealer was heard saying, "She has no soul." When asked to explain his position, he couldn’t find the words to back it up. It was something, he claimed, he just felt. There ought to be no objection to the opinion that a work of art lacks soul but to make the claim also requires a responsibility to explain why. It could be argued that the newer paintings are more soulful because the oil paint reveals the mess involved in making a painting. The enamel works make the hand disappear, manicuring the struggle. What is problematic is that a large area of unmodulated color stays rich in enamel but has a tendency for dead spots in oil. It may be Essenhigh’s soulfulness is inhibited somewhat because her mythology runs in advance of her understanding of the way to paint this philosophy. But, she continues to evolve letting the characters of her world teach her how they want to look in paint. Right now, the reliance on line may be beginning to be too restrictive, describing a world instead of becoming it. We have to be patient though and let the process of the artist work this through. Essenhigh’s desire to "shake things up" by changing mediums and allowing for experimentation is courageous. Her paintings are enriched because of it. And so are we.

One gigantic eyeball hovers among huge waves, in a recent painting, wherein a figure attempts to rise at the shoreline. This eyeball clues us in to the powerful undercurrents of imagination ready to be harvested from our very souls. Refusing to be beached along the shores of the unconscious, Essenhigh plunges headlong into its ocean of mysteries. May we take on the high waves with her, navigating between the dangerous undertows, devoutly awash in the grace of blue greens.

Jennifer Reeves, NY Arts Magazine, February 2003