05/12/2001
by Martha Schwendener

Inka Essenhigh’s paintings are an unlikely bricolage of influences: animation, abstraction, Chinese screen painting, and science fiction. When she burst on the New York art scene in 1996, she arrived with paintings that were still somewhat gestural, showing the brushstrokes and marks of their making. But her paintings have since become slick, enameled pieces that she describes as "artificial, like something that was made by Mattel" (the toy manufacturer of, most notably, the Barbie doll).

Essenhigh’s career has accelerated quickly from her first solo show at La MaMa – La Galleria in New York in 1997. From there she moved to Deitch Projects, where she showed in 1999 and then to Mary Boone’s 57^th Street gallery, where she had an exhibition of paintings in the spring of 2000 (Essenhigh has since left Boone, although she hasn’t yet joined up with any other New York gallerist). Her show at Mary Boone followed a number of high profile media slots, including a New York Magazine article on "hot" New York painters ("The Mod Squad," January 11, 2000), a photo in I-D, inclusion in another round-up of young painters in Vanity Fair ("Gotta Paint!" in the February 2000 issue), as well as being immortalized in Timothy Greenfield-Sander’s 1999 book of portraits, Art World. Her work has also appeared in a number of group shows, including the Brooklyn Museum’s recent "My Reality: Contemporary Art and the Culture of Japanese Animation."

Essenhigh’s prices started out modestly, but by the time of her first show at Mary Boone, her canvases were fetching $ 25,000 (€ 28,000). Boone also exhibited works on paper by Essenhigh in 2000, which sold for $ 6,000 (€ 6,700). Collectors have been holding on to Essenhigh’s work, so very little of it has reached the secondary market. Two works that have been sold at auction are Wheel of Fortune which sold at Sotheby’s New York on the 16^th of May 2001 for $ 38,125 (€ 42,700), surpassing its estimate of $ 18,000-25,000 (€ 20,180-28,000), and Beauty Contest (1999), a peach-toned canvas with abstract, energetic forms that conjure up images of Asian warriors and animation, which sold at Christies New York two days later for $ 52,875 (€ 59,280), against an estimate of $ 40,000-60,000 (€ 44,800-67,260).

A canvas titled Yellow Turkey was auctioned off on November 16, 2001 at Christie’s, fetching $ 7,050 (€ 7,900), low for Essenhigh, and Desert Island a 1997 painting sold at Sotheby’s November 15, 2001 Contemporary Sale didn’t reach its estimate of $ 30,000-40,000 (€ 33,600-44,840), selling for $ 18,000 (€ 20,180). But even in the current, stark economic climate, Essenhigh is holding on, and given her short sales history—doubling prices on works sold just a few years ago—there is no reason to believe she will not continue to fare well in the secondary market.

More importantly, despite the hype surrounding her career, the quality of Essenhigh’s paintings has become better as her profile has increased, indicating that, if the "Mod Squad" painters disappear from public view, she will be among the last—particularly to see a decrease in her primary and secondary art market prices.