Hettie Inniss explores the fluidity of memory and identity through her sensory painting practice. Drawing on her British Caribbean heritage, Inniss works from involuntary recollections, capturing fleeting sensations triggered by smell, sound and texture. Her canvases embrace ambiguity, layering figuration and abstraction to reflect the instability of memory and the freedom found within it.
Working with warm, earthy hues and unconventional materials like sand and linseed oil, Inniss creates compositions that feel tactile and immersive. Her practice transforms the act of remembering into a dynamic process of learning and unlearning.
Challenging the notion of fixed narratives, Inniss’ paintings inhabit a space where personal histories merge with universal themes. Evoking the tastes, sounds and rhythms of memory, identity and experience remain in flux.
Hettie Innis, in her studio, London, 2024. Photo: Hannah Burton for Artsy Hettie Inniss (b. 1999, London, UK; lives and works in London, UK). Inniss is a British Caribbean artist who graduated from the Painting MA course at the Royal College of Art, London in 2023, was awarded the Sir Frank Bowling Scholarship in 2022 and was included in the Artsy Vanguard 2025. Inniss has participated in multiple group exhibitions, most recently a duo presentation with Cece Philips, ‘Digestif - [diːʒɛˈstiːf]’, Palazzo Monti, Brescia. The Tate Collective also commissioned her to create an artwork in response to a piece in their collection in October 2023. In 2024 the artist had her first solo exhibitions at GRIMM, London and GRIMM, New York.
Provenance
Donated by the artist and GRIMM Amsterdam, New York and London
7
My Lodestar
signed and dated 'H Inniss 25 H Inniss 25 H Inniss 25' on the overlap
acrylic, oil, oil stick, pigment and modelling paste on canvas
40 x 60 cm (15 3/4 x 23 5/8 in.)
Painted in 2025.
Estimate
£2,500 - 3,500 ♠
Sold
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Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon: Charity Online Auction
26 February - 5 March 2025