Part III_Talking Pictures

Works in the Exhibition | Interview



Inka Essenhigh: Mob & Minotaur, 2002
Photo: courtesy Goetz Collection

Works in the Exhibition

Arrows of Fear, 2002, Oil on wood
Mob & Minotaur, 2002, Oil on wood



Interview

Rainald Schumacher: Rainald Schumacher: In an artist's statement from 2000 you wrote about your paintings: "I think of them as being about America: fake, fun, pop, violent, but also quite attractive."(1) Imogen Cornwall-Jones wrote about the deep fears that may occur in our cultural and political situation: "In their themes and style, the paintings explore millennial anxieties over the fate of nature and the human in an increasingly technological, violent and homogeneous world. However, they are also intended to be funny."(2) Do both quotes still characterize some of your intentions?
Inka Essenhigh: Somewhat. At that time I really wanted to create something that looked new and now and I’m not as focused on that any more. These days I want to do work that a viewer can enter into and so I got rid of the shiny toy finish that made it look so now and new, but the narratives are the same.

(1) Inka Essenhigh, artist's statement for Artists Alliance, 2000, quoted in Imogen Cornwall-Jones, "Inka Essenhigh", in Inka Essenhigh, exhib. cat., The Victoria Miro Gallery, London 2002, p. 11.
(2) Imogen Cornwall-Jones, ibid, pp.10, 11.

Text excerpt »I rely heavily on sound effects« - A Conversation via E-mail with Inka Essenhigh, November 2005 (Author: Rainald Schumacher), Exhibition Catalogue Imagination Becomes Reality Part III_Talking Pictures