Michael Borremans
My work combines two aspects at the same time: it not only reflects the complex and dark side of human nature like a mirror, but also draws lessons from the common elements in classical portraits. This contradiction will bring a sense of alienation to the viewer, which is exactly where the interest of the work lies.
————Michaël Borremans
Borremans is an artist I admire very much. The sense of mystery and alienation conveyed in his works is very attractive to me. His unique painting technique combines skilled techniques with subjects that cannot be explained directly, the real and the false. Distinctions are often ambiguous, just as his complex and open-ended scenes are prone to conflicting emotions—they are nostalgic, darkly comical, disturbing, and grotesque.
He escaped the emerging creative routine—a breakthrough in the medium and concept of "painting", or a reflection on the global political climate and national destiny. He chose to continue the techniques of classic painting (artists such as Velázquez, Goya, and Manet), and on this basis, infuse contemporary photography, film characterization (As shown in figure 1,2).
Figure 1，Michaël Borremans，The storm，2006
Film
Figure 2，Michaël Borremans，Weight，2005
Film
Brymans' paintings are extremely diverse, uncertain, with a sense of quiet mystery, humor, obscurity and anxiety. The painting The Devil’s Dress (As shown in figure 3) shows a faceless, perfect-figured woman lying naked in a red polygonal cardboard. The contradiction between the title and the theme is the biggest feature of this work, which makes people feel the plot narrative and the historical and artistic sense of the space, just like a dialogue with Manet, and Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson of DrNicolaes Tulp (Figure 4). The painting style is
Figure 3，Michaël Borremans，Devil's Dress
Oil on Canvas
similar. The work itself has a strong narrative, and when the relationship is dismantled, it ultimately expresses the problems of people themselves.
Figure 4, Rembrandt, Anatomy Lesson of DrNicolaes Tulp ,
1632
Oil on canvas
In a word, the sense of tranquility, mystery, humor and obscurity conveyed in borymans' works have given me a new understanding of realistic painting and also inspired me.
Reference:
The storm (2006) Directed by Michaël Borremans[Feature film]. Place of distribution: distribution company.
Weight (2005) Directed by Michaël Borremans[Feature film]. Place of distribution: distribution company.
Michaël Borremans (1996) Devil's Dress [Oil on canvas]. Location of the work (Viewed: date).
Rembrandt (1632) The Anatomy Lesson of Dr．Nicolaes Tulp [Oil on canvas]. Mauritshuis Royal Museum of Fine Arts The Hague (Viewed: date).