Michaël Borremans (born Geraardsbergen, 1963) is a Belgian painter whose work engages with the European painting tradition, particularly Velázquez, Manet and Degas. Trained first as a photographer at the Sint-Lucas school in Ghent, he turned to painting in the mid-1990s. He often starts from old photographs of people and landscapes, and his work is known for its unsettling atmosphere and meticulous handling of paint.
Before his breakthrough he taught at the Stedelijk Secundair Kunstinstituut in Ghent. His move into the professional art world came through a local collector, who introduced him to Jan Hoet, founder of the S.M.A.K. in Ghent, and then to the Zeno X gallery in Antwerp, where he had his first major exhibition.
In 2005 the S.M.A.K. gave him a solo show that travelled to London and Dublin, and in 2010 he exhibited in Denver and at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice. In 2014 the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels hosted a survey of one hundred works from the previous two decades, titled As Sweet as It Gets.
His work has provoked debate: in 2022 a book of his appeared in a controversial advertising campaign, and several online critics attacked his paintings of children. Borremans has been a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts since 2014.}