Galerie Caroline O’Breen in Amsterdam is presenting ‘Nightcall’, a solo exhibition of new works by artist Satijn Panyigay, who has been photographing temporarily vacant interior spaces extensively over the past years – empty museums, depots, new or repurposed buildings and homes. In her latest project ‘Nightcall’ (2024), she turns her lens to nocturnal exteriors. Captured overnight in the urban environment of Utrecht, the Netherlands, her compositions highlight brief moments of stillness in otherwise bustling spaces. Panyigay takes long nighttime walks and seeks out unintended compositions within the industrial structures.
For ‘Nightcall’, Panyigay works with her analogue camera, long exposures and the minimal light that the night provides. In her images, she makes use of the moonlight as well as the artificial street lights, and the difference is hard to tell apart. The artist employs this light to find contrast in the gloomy monotone and functional industrial landscape. It can appear in the glow of the windows in the dark, reflections of the moon in the anonymous facades, or in the shimmer of the closed-off blinds.
In Panyigay’s geometrical compositions, the absence of people paradoxically yields a palpable sense of presence. The artist is drawn to the ethereal realm of the night and its enigmatic allure. The series encapsulates a separate world, mirroring ours, yet imbued with an eerie detachment.
With her work, Panyigay hopes to carve out space for tranquility which is, according to the artist, underappreciated in the haste of our contemporary culture. In ‘Nightcall’, the relentless pace of modern work life twists inside-out. Clean architectural abstractions and graphic shapes introduce the profound simplicity of a pause.
Satijn Panyigay (b. 1988, Nijmegen) is a Dutch-Hungarian photographer, living and working in Utrecht. In 2023, her work was on view at Centre D’art Contemporain de Meymac (France), Verwey Museum Haarlem, BlueKnowledge Art Collection’s art space in Amsterdam, and museum Escher in Het Paleis in The Hague. Past exhibitions include a.o. Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, Museum W, Fotomuseum Den Haag, Museum Tot Zover, Villa Mondriaan, Museum iCOON and presentations at art fairs such as Art Rotterdam, Unseen Photo Fair, PAN Amsterdam. Panyigay’s first artist book VOID was published by Hartmann Books (Germany) in 2023. The work of Satijn Panyigay is part of collections at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Museum Tot Zover, Museum Van Bommel Van Dam, Museum W., DZ Bank in Germany, KPMG, collection Reyn van der Lugt, Sgabello Collection, BlueKnowledge Art Collection, Lakeside Collection and a growing number of private collections.
Satijn Panyigay : Nightcall
March 9 – April 13, 2024
Galerie Caroline O’Breen
Hazenstraat 54
1016 SR Amsterdam
+31(06) 471 044 84
www.carolineobreen.com
