LLEI D'ART 14

Michaël Borremans TheMagnetismof theAmbiguous Centro deArte Contemporáneo deMálaga Until the 17th of January 2016 TheMálagaContemporaryArt Centre is holding an important exhibitionof thework ofMichaël Borremans (born inGeraardsbergen, 1963), one of themost important Belgian artists of our time. Fixture, curated by FernandoFrancés, brings together 35 anonymous portraits and still lifes, generally painted indark colour schemes, from the Flemish artist’s last fifteen years. Thepainter anddraughtsman lives andworks inGhent, Belgium. Hiswork is simultaneously seductive and melancholic, skilfullyweaving sinister or even insane undertones. Ironic and unclassifiable, his painting evokes opposing feelings borne of hismarkedly symbolic and surreal vision. Paintingswithphotographs as their base, takenby the artist himself or others, torn up,manipulated and later pieced together in an order closer to fantasy than reality, with the aimof demonstrating the absurdity of the human condition. An aficionadoof the great SpanishBaroquemasters, he frequently turns to them as a source of inspiration. The use of such a small format hasmuch todowith the artist’s desire to create an interest in the observer that acts as a kindof propellor, pushing them towards the piece to scrutinise thepainting inmoredetail, forcing them to contemplatephilosophical questions about thepainting andwhat it represents and symbolises. Thepaintings possess a great psychological charge – they deal with intellectually complex concepts, challenging the observer to unravel them. Thepeople andobjects captured in theseworks never look directly at the observer, nor are they ever seen face-on; this creates an atmosphere ofmystery across a space which seems familiar and foreign at the same time. Borremans’ artistic career dealswith recurring and rather ambiguous themes likedeath, nature, the unease causedby confusion, and the overlappingof proximity anddistance. Hands also feature heavily in hiswork – to him they aremysterious, almost worshippedobjects. Renowned also for his drawings and films, Borremans is apeculiar character whopaintswith solid strokes and is amaster of technical skill. “Apainting is an object with complex character, anddue to its historic dimension it’s impossible to treat it neutrally”, he asserts. Thosedepicted in hisworks pose as almost singular archetypes or universal, symbolic entities which inhabit strange sceneries amongwhich they seem not tobelong: “The images are unfinished: they remainopen. That iswhy they endure,” the artist says. Although he enjoys challenging normswith small- format pieces, hedoes not hesitate toopt for a larger canvaswhen the theme requires it. The shock value of hiswork is absolutely undeniable, because it tricks the senses by showing us a friendly facewhichmasks the unknown, an internal conflict, a struggle. His work exudes solitude, violence and uprooting, giving the reader a highly visceral readingof whatmight be happeningon the other side of the canvas. 109