Brussels!
By Unknown 4:25 AM adventure, art, Belgium, Borremans, Botanique, Bozar, Brussels, Dutch, europe, exhibition, gardens, Gent, Ghent, Michel Borremans, parks, travel
Yesterday I decided to take a little day trip to Brussels! I had gone for a day before with Simon when I visited him in December, but because of the dreadful "camera falling in the canal" incident there is no evidence. Simon's father had suggested a wonderful art exhibition at Bozar, which is a very nice art center in Brussels, on Michaël Borremans. I was not familiar with Borremans work before seeing the exhibition, but the exhibition really blew me away. He is a Belgian artist who now lives and works in Ghent. His paintings are incredibly beautiful and yet haunting and almost frightening at the same time. Through his technique you can see his influences come from painters such as Degas and Manet but his subjects are of another realm. He creates these scenes where the background give no indication of a real location and never is the subject looking at the viewer. The eyes are always down cast or looking past you, making it hard to know if this is a true individual or just an object. In his later works he starts to work more with film and photography as well. If anyone gets a chance to see his work, I believe the exhibition is going to Tel Aviv and Dallas next, I would highly recommend it.
After Bozar I walked around the city for a while and found the Botanique. It also had a nice exhibition going on inside about immigration but it was all in French so it was a little hard for me to grasp. But there are really beautiful gardens outside, a nice place to sit and read or get out of the city for a minute. Brussels is definitely a much larger city than Ghent, it feels more hectic and there are many more tall office buildings. But it is still a really beautiful city, lots of great old architecture and many wonderful parks around the city which is really nice. Also it is only about a 30 minutes train ride away from Gent so it is a perfect place to go for a little get away. Enjoy the pictures! Also below I have attached a link to the new Gent in Motion video! I sent out the trailer for this video before I came to Gent and they have recently come out with this new version so please watch!
