ANNICK GEENEN
Annick Geenen is a visual artist and professor of photography based in Belgium. With a background in fine arts photography, she focuses on conceptual projects in which she investigates the tradition of the portrait genre.
Her work particularly explores the feminine identity and the relationship to its environment. 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, and its long-term sensorial experience. She has always been interested in the way photography influences our perception of time, scale and space.
Annick Geenen follows several lines of thought and work: her interest in the understanding of impermanence and where it condenses briefly into a physical or visual moment, in scenography of uncontrollable or intangible phenomena, such as the ever-changing light and the passage of time.
INTERDISCIPLINARY EXPLORATION
She has forged multiple collaborations with individuals, choreographers, designers, various magazines and companies in Europe.
Her images were extensively presented, both nationally and internationally, and exhibited in the collections of Veronique Branquinho, 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); 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, Campo & Campo Art Gallery and various cultural centers 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).
EDUCATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
Annick Geenen has served as a professor of photography in the BA and MA program of the Visual Arts Department at LUCA School of Arts in Genk (BE) since 2004. She was also the chairperson of the Visual Arts Department at Media, Arts & Design Academy Genk, from 2004 to 2012.
She studied Fine Arts Photography at the Higher Institute for Visual Communication & Industrial design in Genk, earning an MFA. In 1991-’92, she was the assistant of fashion photographer Marcel van der Vlugt in Amsterdam, after which she worked as a freelance photographer for 17 years. She was also a resident in the workplace of the multidisciplinary artist Jan Fabre, for two years. From then on she began her artistic research and focused on her own art practice.