Twilight Zone (The Kröller-Müller Museum) is a new series from a larger project by Satijn Panyigay, dedicated to capturing the empty exhibition spaces of leading Dutch museums displaying contemporary art. This series is a continuation of the previous one that documents the empty Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, closed for renovation, and its new depot. The Kröller-Müller Museum (Otterlo, The Netherlands) was captured vacant in between the exhibitions – a twilight zone, a state that visitors don’t get to witness.

The photographs from Twilight Zone gracefully reveal Panyigay’s signature minimalist compositions, all delicately orchestrated. Employing subtle aspects of color and geometry, Panyigay’s works immerse the viewer into architectural abstractions. The soft color gradations of her near-monochrome images can be described as pastel drawing look-alikes. Emphasized yet unobtrusive details unveil the hyper-realistic nature of Panyigay’s oeuvre. Architectural photography becomes abstract as Satijn brings into play audacious minimalism.

The artist is notorious for her tranquil photographs in which the emptiness seems to emphasize the absence of people. Panyigay melds and balances form and color, rhythm and quiet, light and dark, figurative and abstract. Shot in human-made spaces, these humanless images express distinct emotions – such as loneliness and fear, or hope and acceptance – through an abstract play of light and dark. Some places are recognizable as museum rooms, but the abstraction almost always exceeds the figuration.

A light spot on the wall, freshly painted pedestals, a gaping doorway peeking into an adjoining room. In Twilight Zone, it is not so much what you see but the way it is presented through the specific use of radiance and dim, rhythmic lines and corners that create the feeling of tension or silence. In strict but poetic analog color images Satijn Panyigay traces presence in seemingly empty spaces.

Twilight Zone (The Kröller-Müller Museum)
2021

Pigment print on cotton paper, framed with museum glass or matte acrylic
70x52.5 cm/120x90 cm, edition 3+2AP per size

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