Inka Essenhigh (born 1969 Bellefonte, Pennsylvania) is a painter based in New York. Artist Inka Essenhigh studied at the Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio (1991) and the School of Visual Arts in New York (1993). Essenhigh’s work has been shown widely at galleries and museums around the world including SMAK in Belgium, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Bienal de São Paulo, SITE Santa Fe, MOMA in New York, and The Royal Academy in London. Her work is featured in several prestigious public collections including the Albright Knox Art Gallery, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Tate Gallery and the Saatchi Gallery in London. Essenhigh's work attracted attention as one of a generation of young painters in New York in the late 1990s, including Cecily Brown, Damien Loeb and Will Cotton. Her early work was sometimes characterized as "Pop Surrealism" for its strangely attenuated cartoon forms and flat, simple colors. Essenhigh lives in New York City and is married to the artist Steve Mumford.