Vacant Rooms involved the industrial painting of a disused factory space which were then captured through the lens. Through the act of painting, Geoff Kleem both revealed and transformed the spaces by coating and capturing them under a tactile skin of paint. The photographs almost flatten the spaces into appearing as two-dimensional. Vacant Rooms prompts questions about perception and the ability photography and painting have to challenge reality.

Employing powerful lighting to push the visibility of the rooms to the edge of what was possible to record on film, Geoff Kleem causes the lighting to become physical within the space, simultaneously revealing everything and creating a monochrome void. Kleem investigates the slippage between painting and photography, producing works which are bound by photography but are also able to exist separately from it.