MICHAËL BORREMANS

Early Years

Michaël Borremans was born in 1963 in Geraardsbergen, Belgium. His grandfather was a photographer, and for a time he considered working as a professional photographer. Borremans trained in photography, etching and drawing at the Luca School of Arts in Ghent, receiving his MFA in 1996. However, it wasn’t until he was 33 that he decided to shift his focus to painting. “It was overnight,” Borremans told Ocula in 2018. “It was like an epiphany. All of a sudden I knew I had to paint. One sudden moment it just came to me that I just had to paint.”

Michaël Borremans: Artworks

“Painting is a window on another world, which you can enter, and I find this fascinating,” Borremans [once said][Ocula]. However, his works also span filmmaking, sculpture, etching and drawing and explore ideas of power, vulnerability, ambiguity and identity. While his works may seem grounded in the language of portraiture, this is only part of what is on show: figures are not always complete—perhaps limbs are missing—or engaged in ritualistic behaviour.

• The Fire from the Sun series (2017) depicted playful toddlers, perhaps reminiscent of Renaissance cherubs, sometimes alone and sometimes in groups, against a stage-set-type background. Contrasting innocence and deviance, the young figures take part in bloody, violent, unsettling acts—or their bodies seem to be disappearing into the background itself.
• The Coloured Cones series (2020) came about after Borremans had asked models to make a costume to pose as a specific subject. Displaying samples of his chosen fabric on cones, to simulate how it might hang on a human, he became fascinated by the shapes and forms of the material and decided to paint the cones. Borremans’ use of oil paint and brushstrokes creates highly pigmented scenes that bridge a gap between portraiture and still life.
• For his 2024 exhibition The Monkey, Borremans painted five portraits based on photographs of porcelain figurines of monkeys playing instruments that he found at auction. Using a technique involving multiple layers of transparent oil paint, he created the five pieces that are part caricature and part reference to well-known painting styles (for example, classical society portraiture and representations of military figures).

Michaël Borremans: Select Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Michaël Borremans: French Painting, David Zwirner, Paris (2026)
• Michaël Borremans—A Confrontation at the Zoo, Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (2024)
• Michaël Borremans: The Monkey, David Zwirner, London (2024)
• Michaël Borremans: The Promise, Prada Rong Zhai, Shanghai (2024)
• Michaël Borremans: The Acrobat, David Zwirner, New York (2022)
• Michaël Borremans: Coloured Cones, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp (2020)
• Michaël Borremans: The Duck, Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague (2020)
• Michaël Borremans: Fire from the Sun, David Zwirner, Hong Kong (2018)
• Michaël Borremans: Black Mould, David Zwirner, London (2015)
• Michaël Borremans: The Advantage, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2014)
• Michaël Borremans: The people from the future are not to be trusted, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp __ Michaël Borremans: The Devil’s Dress, David Zwirner, New York City (2011)
• Michaël Borremans: Looking for the Face I had Before the World Was Made, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (2010)
• Michaël Borremans: Earthlight Room, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo (2008)
• Michaël Borremans: The Good Ingredients, La maison rouge—Fondation Antoine de Galbert, Paris (2006)
• Michaël Borremans: The Performance, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (SMAK), Ghent (2005) (and touring)
• Michaël Borremans: Trickland, David Zwirner, New York City (2003)
• Michaël Borremans: The Fetish Paintings, Croxhapoxruimte, Ghent (1999)
• Michaël Borremans: The Mind and its Limits, In den Bouw, Kalken (1998)

Select Group Exhibitions

• Body Fragment, The Power Station, Dallas (2026)
• Global Fascisms, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2025)
• The Kids Are Alright, Timothy Taylor, New York City (2025)
• My World, Singer Laren Museum, Laren (2024)
• Baroque, Champ Lacombe, Biarritz (2023)
• Nadir, Castle of Laarne (2022)
• Michaël Borremans | Mark Manders: Double Silence, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2020)
• David Zwirner: 25 Years, David Zwirner, New York City (2018)
• The Importance of Being..., Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana (2015) (and touring)
• Contemporary Painting, 1960 to the Present: Selections from the SFMOMA Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2012)
• 14th Vilnius Painting Triennial: False Recognition, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius (2010)
• Eclipse—Art in a Dark Age_, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2008)_
• The Eternal Flame, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel (2008)
• Berlin Biennial (2006)
• Drawing from the Modern: 1975–2005, MoMA, New York City (2005)
• The House of Fiction, Sammlung Hauser und Wirth in der Lokremise, St Gallen (2002)
• (With) Drawings into 2000, Van Laere Contemporary Art, Antwerp (1999)
• Schilderkunst—Hedendaags—Belgisch, Croxhapoxruimte, Ghent (1997)

Further Reading

• Artist profile page at David Zwirner
• Interview in Ocula (2018)
• 2024 profile in Ocula
• 2026 interview in Flash Art
• 2024 interview in Plaster

Michaël Borremans FAQs

Ocula