Satijn Panyigay (b. 1988, Nijmegen) is a half Dutch, half Hungarian photographer. Satijn Panyigay makes work that invites its viewer to slow down. In strict but poetic analog color images she’s suggesting presence in seemingly empty spaces. Her work, in absence of any direct human narratives, is surprisingly humane – she addresses the feelings of its observer.
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 (till March ‘24). 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, Amsterdam Art Fair. Panyigay’s 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.
In her latest project Nightcall (2024), Satijn Panyigay turns her lens to nocturnal exteriors. Captured overnight in the urban environment of Utrecht, 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. In Nightcall, the relentless pace of modern work life twists inside-out.
In the series Higher Ground (2022), transformation takes center stage as Satijn Panyigay witnesses the construction of new apartment buildings and the restoration of a historic municipal monument. The series captures spaces in their transitional and vacant state, distinctive of Panyigay’s artistic approach. Deep Space I (2022) is a series made in subterranean spaces. The old post office’s basement has been thoroughly renovated to become the depot of the Dutch museum Van Bommel Van Dam.
Twilight Zone is an extensive body of work dedicated to capturing the empty exhibition spaces of the Dutch contemporary art museums. In 2019, she shot Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen just after its closure for a major renovation for the series. Read more about this series here. The follow-up series Liminal Land (2021) was created in the museum’s brand new depot, just before the art collection was housed there. Soft Solace (2021) is a series that emerged from photographing the museum’s building once again during the asbestos remediation process. The empty Kröller-Müller Museum is also part of the project Twilight Zone (2021) — captured on film with no visitors or art on display. Read more about this series here.
The series (Living) room (2019) shows the living room of a young art collectors couple, destroyed by a fire. Photographs resonate with the feeling that the house owner had when he woke up in the middle of the night because of the fire. The melancholic photo series Behind Death’s Door (2011) shows the houses of recently deceased people, cleared out by specialised companies. The photos are hermetic, there is no contact with the outside world. This also applies to the series Melankólia (2016-ongoing), shot in Hungary in search of her roots, in a place of Panyigay father’s origin.