Where is the love for INKA ESSENHIGH?!?!

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Bullies (2005, oil on linen 70 x 76 inches)

Sunshine (2004, oil on canvas 76 x 70 inches)

Straight to Hell (2003, oil on canvas 76 x 72 inches)

Kate Dancing (2002, oil on panel 56 x 54 inches)

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 14:01 (twenty years ago)

http://www.inka-essenhigh.com for plenty more.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 14:02 (twenty years ago)

I'm not so sure about these, Austin, but I do like this series. Keep it going!

― the D Double signal (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 14:08 (twenty years ago)

I'm always down for someone else to post links to an artist I may not have heard of, too. I don't know nearly as much as I'd like.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 14:16 (twenty years ago)

i like paintings but i don't like THOSE paintings (except the bottom one, maybe)

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 14:39 (twenty years ago)

Where is the love for Ed McCartan?

http://artists-in-residence.com/edsart/index.html

Admittedly, I like the non-spiritual ones that look like Vaughan Oliver would lift them for 4AD album covers.

― Ian Riese-Moraine: exposing ambitious careerists as charlatans since 1986. (East, Tuesday, 14 June 2005 14:45 (twenty years ago)

Where is the love for TOKIHIRO SATO?!?!

http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/images/sato_photo2.jpg
http://www.tonkonow.com/images/tokihiro_sato/sato_kashimagawa352_d.jpg
http://www.artnet.com/magazine/reviews/cassidy/Images/cassidy4-4-2.jpg
http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/picturepostcard/Images/sato6-25-1.jpg
http://www.cavant-garde.com/image/picts/jap002.jpg

― the D Double signal (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 14:52 (twenty years ago)

Are those digitally altered or did he use, say, a cigarette?

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 14:54 (twenty years ago)

To make these photographs, Sato places an 8 x 10 camera on a tripod, opens the lens for an hour-long exposure, and physically enters the scene, pointing a flashlight at the camera by night or using a mirror to reflect light back toward the lens by day. Starting from the back of the scene, he works forward, but the long exposure renders his body invisible, as it does any moving object so we see only the background and the spots of light. Natural motion, such as ocean waves becomes mist and there are often unexplained blurs and ghostly objects in these photographs.
Sato calls his work "breath-graphs" or "photo-respiration," because he makes "a direct connection between my breath and the act of tracing out the light." This, he says, “has the same significance as in monotonous activities such as long distance running or swimming, when one’s focus is only on breathing."

The artist takes at least an hour and probably much longer to make a photograph, but compresses this passage of time into a single image. We can compare his work to Japanese scrolls or Medieval European art in which a personage may appear twice in a single scene to show narrative progress. We infer Sato’s presence in these photographs, but do not see him. He is there and not there. The lights he leaves behind evoke his -- and our -- fleeting existence.

― the D Double signal (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 14:56 (twenty years ago)

Fucking amazing, dudes!

― the D Double signal (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 14:57 (twenty years ago)

http://www.artnet.com/magazine/reviews/cassidy/Images/cassidy4-4-1.jpg

― the D Double signal (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 14:57 (twenty years ago)

Everything on this thread is fucking brilliant! Those photos are haunted by will-o-wisps!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 14:59 (twenty years ago)

Wow. My photo prof would go on about "Dancing with the light" but this is the first time I've seen the idea taken so literally.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 14:59 (twenty years ago)

those are awesome

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 15:12 (twenty years ago)

it's an amazing effect on daytime outdoor shots because it drags the shading on the scenery out, following the sun's movement during the exposure, so the forest and the buildings etc. look cool and monolithic. Look at the shadow on the left side of the NEC building! That shit is tight.

I don't understand exactly how he can hold the light in position long enough to burn into the film so brightly but keep his own silhouette from showing up at all. Does he just dress in dark clothing and the reflected light from the scenery stays mostly unaffected by the brief period of time he's in the shot? Also I wonder about the little softer dots that appear to the right of every dot in the city photograph, did he forget to take off his watch?

Pretty sweet though.

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 14 June 2005 15:41 (twenty years ago)

I don't think it's possible to do that with a daytime outdoor shot. I'd bet he works exclusively at night. That shadow on the NEC building could be from the lights across the street, maybe? As for how he can burn the light so deeply, I would suppose that he's just got a pretty bright lamp. Maybe that 'ghost light' is a filter thing? He clearly used a star filter for at least part of the first one set in the forest.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 15:48 (twenty years ago)

I believe that he does work exclusively at night.

― the D Double signal (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

I think Essenhigh is great but I like the earlier, flatter work much better than some of the more recent stuff. Everything prior to 2003 is great though. Her work reminds me of Gorky & Matta both of whom I also love.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

Actually I liked her better when she was working on the sheet metal with enamel based paint as well. That's the stuff I first saw by her.

― Austin, awayfromdesk, Tuesday, 14 June 2005 17:43 (twenty years ago)

The bottom Essenhigh is the best -- I like that it looks like an animation cel. The first one, though, reminds me too much of Thomas Hart Benton and the third one of Dali.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 17:51 (twenty years ago)

Inka Essenhigh is also very, very pretyy.

― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 18:08 (twenty years ago)

And she's "pretty" too.

See?
http://www.teamgal.com/groupshows/shinyshiny/inka.jpg

― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 18:10 (twenty years ago)

Whoa.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 18:12 (twenty years ago)

I take it back. All of her work is PERFECT.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 18:13 (twenty years ago)

I believe that he does work exclusively at night.

I was wrong about this, by the way.

His photos were on show at the Art Institute in Chicago and are now here in SF. The catalogue describes his process of "walking, climbing or swimming(!)" with a flashlight or a mirror to achieve his effect.

― the D Double signal (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 18:24 (twenty years ago)

big fan of her disney gone acified stuff, dont like the fotos, and her printz are shit

― anthony easton (anthony), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 22:57 (twenty years ago)

Wait the photos are a different artist right?

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 22:58 (twenty years ago)

Yes. The photos are a different artist, his name is above the photos.

I was also a little confused how you guys could have said that he works "exclusively at night" when the paragraph adam posted contains a line detailing exactly what he uses instead of a flashlight to make the flares during THE DAY.

Swimming with a flashlight sounds like fun! I have a waterproof flashlight at home.

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 15 June 2005 13:20 (twenty years ago)

I said that because my reading comprehension is for shit sometimes.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 13:43 (twenty years ago)

four years pass...

http://www.stjohns-edinburgh.org.uk/uploads/images/mural_dec03.jpg

― xhukx, Thursday, 25 March 2010 05:24 (sixteen years ago)

I dreamt last night that Matthew Perpetua told me he was "sort of seeing" Inka Essenhigh.

― jaymc, Monday, July 23, 2007 10:20 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

― jam master (jaymc), Thursday, 25 March 2010 05:26 (sixteen years ago)

I do respect how off the deep end she's gone, but the territory she's in is less interesting to me...

― WARS OF ARMAGEDDON (Karaoke Version) (Sparkle Motion), Thursday, 25 March 2010 05:31 (sixteen years ago)

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