Michaël Borremans

Why this artist matters now

Michaël Borremans works in oil painting and film, building compositions from self-made photographs and commissioned sculptures that he uses as preparatory source material. His technique is grounded in the tradition of Velázquez, Manet, and Degas, producing surfaces with an 18th-century tonal restraint that sits in quiet tension with unsettling, ambiguous subject matter. Figures appear suspended in mid-gesture, isolated against muted grounds, generating a psychological unease that the painterly refinement only intensifies. Based in Ghent, Belgium, he is one of the more compelling figures working within a rigorous figurative tradition today.

Source: Zwirner · Trust score: 100% · Updated 2mo ago