Signed; Michaël Borremans - Automat [with dedication] - 2009

Hardcover with dust jacket
Limited edition
Exhibition at Kestnergesellschaft Hannover, fine copy.
Michaël Borremans (Geraardsbergen, 1963) is a Belgian artist who lives and works in Ghent.
Borremans' work occupies a unique place within Flemish contemporary art.
Borremans' work is included in the collections of, among others, SMAK in Ghent, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Borremans uses the Baroque painting technique, which involves working with transparent layers of oil paint on a ground (imprimatura) that is not white like in the Flemish primitives, but light brown or red.
Borremans deliberately uses poorly defined signifiers that clash in ambiguous spaces. This method aligns with his desire 'to create an atmosphere outside of time, a space where time no longer exists.'
The painting Automat (I) (2008) again depicts the image of a young woman, but this time in the form of a lifelike doll. Only a sort of opening in her right arm seems to indicate that she has a hidden mechanism. Behind her lies a flesh-colored object, which might be the lid. However, the most intriguing aspect of the image is the apparent absence of legs. The doll / girl floats above a surface. The shadow under her skirt prevents us from seeing how this works physically. Many characters in Borremans' paintings are cut off at the waist by a plane, for example because they are standing in a bath of ink, oil, or another dark liquid, or because they are leaning against a table.