Untitled, (artists in-studio).

 

This series explores the act of observing and how outside content influences the artist's own work.

The studio has often been a secluded place, surrounded by mystery/myths and often off-limits to outside strangers.

By offering an inside look at this private setting, we are granted the opportunity to look at something that we don't know what it looks like. 

Wanting to see something while not knowing what to expect is creating a tension that adds to the mental charge that is already in play by the different pictorial elements.    

Staying away from depicting the act of "fast" direct physical creation and concentrating more on the "slow" mental aspect of influence and inspiration, the emphases are more on the phycological narrative that starts to evolve between viewer and work.

 

The concept of the film stills relates both to the work in the studio surrounding the artist, which has been influenced by it, as well as the relationship between you as a viewer and the work.

The subtle interplay between the image as a whole and the content of the film is as important as the phycological link between the viewer and the still on the screen.   

In Untitled #1, for example, there are a lot of references to the film still being displayed on the TV.

Playtime (shot from 1964 to 1967, by Jacques Tati ) was shot on a specially constructed set and background stage, known as 'Tativille'
This is mirrored by the "temporary" drywall you see in this studio. But the "hight end" (Sony plasma TV and Bang & Olufsen sound system) equipment plus high-end chair suggest a more permanent situation. 
Photography played a huge part in this film. 
To save money, some of the building facades and the interior of the Orly set were actually giant photographs. (The photographs also had the advantage of not reflecting the cameras or lights.) The Paris landmarks you see reflected in the glass door are also photographs. Tati also used life-sized cutout photographs of people to save money on extras. These cutouts are noticeable in some of the cubicles (our still) when Hulot overlooks the maze of offices, (he anticipated the dominance of office cubicle arrangements by some 20 years.)

All these references to photography and his use of color and framing (subdued colors no close-ups in the entire film) are mirrored in this image and pay homage to a great filmmaker and visionary.

In Untitled #6, the film still is from Umberto D by Vittorio de Sica (1952), which is all about fighting loneliness and isolation and has a very prominent power struggle between a man and a woman.

This is mirrored in the studio by the gestures of the men and woman in the painting on display and the solitary and introverted pose of the artist in her chair.

The "still" on the screen is the moment that the main character, Umberto Domenico Ferrari has decided to beg for money  (after all else has failed) 

But when a passerby wants to put some money in his hand, he pretends to be checking if it's raining by turning his hand.

 

There is a long history of Dutch artist depicting "artist in studios" like Vermeer's The Art of Painting (1666), Rembrandt's The Artist in His Studio (1629), The Painter is his Studio (1650) by Hendrick Gerritsz Pot or Adriaen van Ostade's The Painters Studio (1640) and The Painter in his Workshop (1663). 

Even de Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi when painting his studio setting in the magnificent Interior with a Punch Bowl from 1907, was greatly influenced by 17th-century Dutch painters as well. 

Interestingly, when conceptual artist Piet Mondiaan had his portrait taken in 1906 he chose do be depicted reading a book while sitting at his table, instead of him physically working on a painting. 

 

Since Lajos Geenen grew up in Amsterdam and was exposed at a very early age to Dutch painters like Vermeer, de Hooch, and Rembrandt, his compositions and lighting have been greatly influenced by these old Dutch 17th-century masters.

This is clearly visible in this latest series, where Lajos Geenen pays homage both compositionally and in relation to the sculptural power of light, to this Dutch tradition.