If art is an expression of the inner life, Guy Borremans' photographs are a veritable Rorschach test of accumulated images culled up from the unconscious, primordial ground of being - etched liked rivers by their journeys into the landscape. When we look through the lens of this enigmatic photographer we see real-life images juxtaposed on a dream-scape so evocative and strange that we must concede wonderment can sleep with malaise. Borremans wears his neurosis on his sleeve proudly. His windows on the world shatter comfort and provoke rapprochment with the deeper undercurrents of mystery and the unleashed wilds of the psyche.

The beautiful images of unattainable nude women in primaeval settings suggest the Raphaelesque haunting of unrequited love. Architectural elements further evoke the menacing entrapment of imprisonment and slavery.

Could it be the child fleeing the Nazi invasion of Belgium with his parents that planted the seeds in his young psyche - the need to deconstruct and expose colonialism with its attending hierarchical justification of power and the appropriation of the dispossessed women and slaves.

Who would think then, that a personal encounter with the photographer, artist and cinematographer would be with such a wholesome, and healthy-minded individual.

We can only conclude that Borremans has moved all the neurotic furnishings of his mind through transformation into the arena of his art.

MARTHA BROOKE June 1998