The seductive works of Michaël Borremans (b. 1963 in Belgium, where he lives and works) contain timeless images of inner drive and external force, of the latent pressures involved in being human. Behind a veil of stylistic perfection, heavily influenced by old masters such as Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya or Édouard Manet, the artist simulates common rituals of interpretation and meaning while questioning the medium of painting itself.

His intensely atmospheric and metaphorical images are puzzles involving political and psychological patterns of perceiving the world. As if commenting on the longstanding debate about art's approximation to life, which has been given new significance in the past century with the implementation of photo-based imagery in mass media, his works refuse to adopt a hierarchy between the real and the imaginary.