Abstract Vs. Non-Objective: Inka Essenhigh

One of the first things I've learned in Digital Design Foundation class: I've always mixed up the term "Abstract," with "Non-Representational."

For whatever reason, this reminded me of an artist that I love, Inka Essenhigh. I used to check in on her regularly, but it's been too long.

My favorite of her pieces:



White Rain
2001
oil on enamel on canvas
72 x 74 inches

I don't even know where to start, with reasons why I LOVE this painting. I've always been attracted to surrealism. I can't even remember a time when I didn't know who Salvador Dal í was, and I distinctly remember crying when he died. It was two days before my eleventh birthday. Also, there's the humorous treatment of an iconic product, a cocked and loaded pop-cultural symbol of all my 1980's-flavored, adolescent, pre-feminist turmoil. My older sister WAS White Rain Hairspray, my model of all that was Woman, all that was complicated, all that was unrealistic expectations. The smell filled the house. But it's not all angst: The beautiful Mucha-inspired lines are art to live with, still decorative and soothing as the color scheme, even as the acid rain of chemicals assaults the unicorn figures, melting them.