Annick Geenen (°1970 Leopoldsburg) is a Belgian photographer and professor of photography interested in the construction of worlds, space, visual storytelling, narrative art, philosophy and anthropology. She studied fine arts photography at the Higher Institute for Visual Communication & Industrial design and holds an MFA in Photography from the Media and Design Academy of Genk (now LUCA School of Arts). In 1991-1992 she was the assistant of photographer Marcel van der Vlugt in Amsterdam. She was also a resident in the workplace of the multidisciplinary artist Jan Fabre, for two years.
Annick Geenen worked from the early 1990s as a photographer for various fashion magazines, choreographers and designers. She mainly works on projects in which she investigates the tradition of the portrait genre, linked to fashion photography. She creates cinematic worlds situated between fact and fiction, in which the timeline of each narrative is interrupted. Her often explicit references to the point-of-view, the staging and placement of the characters, the delay and disclosure mechanisms question how we experience and understand the world around us. Her images go beyond classic fashion photography.
In her practice-oriented research and personal work she focuses on the photographic gaze and the visualization of stories in which fact and fiction transform reality. In this sense, She reflects on a place where illusions are at stake. Annick Geenen is looking for a new visual aesthetic, a new storytelling for themes such as identity development, individuality and detachment. The aim of the research is to create images that seek a contemporary expression to counter such utopian ambitions that affect us. The starting point is to create images that appeal to the imagination and refer to perceptual experiences of a philosophical and aesthetic nature.
The images of Annick Geenen were extensively presented, both nationally and internationally, and exhibited in the collections of Raf Simons, Heaven Tanudiredja, Alex Schrijvers, Harvey Bouterse, Wouter Hoste, Revital Avidar, Hideki Seo, Ilia Eckardt, Hilde Frunt, Essential Antwerp, Scabal, Luciano Benetton, Eastpak, Kathleen Missotten, Casimir, Modenatie Antwerp, Anne Pastré, Anke Loh, Veronique Leroy, Jean-Paul Knott, Delvaux, The Flanders Fashion Institute (FFI) Veronique Branquinho and Colette Paris. Annick Geenen’s work has been included in solo and group exhibitions at Vooruitzicht Antwerp, Fashion Museum Hasselt, De Warande Turnhout, Gallery S & H De Buck, the Flemish Parliament and various cultural centres in Flanders.
Her work has been published in VISION magazine, Kwintessens, ISEL art and culture magazine, dS Magazine, Knack Weekend magazine, Blend, AAA art magazine, De Lichte Kamer, Designers Against Aids (Ludion), Moi Veronique Branquinho Toute Nue (MoMu) , Delvaux (Lannoo), Contradictions: 350 Years Antwerp Academy, The Fashion Book (Phaidon) and The Rage of Staging (Lannoo).
Annick Geenen teaches at the academic Bachelor and Master’s degree programs in Visual Arts Photography at LUCA School of Arts (BE).
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