Belgium-based Michael Borremans creates absurd and sometimes ominous paintings. "Horse Hunting" (2005), for example, depicts, in a muddy palette, a pale and moody-looking man in a suit jacket and crisp white shirt shoving two twigs up his nose. He stares straight at us, and the wall behind him is filled with his shadow. Borremans has said of his paintings, "I use clich?s and other elements that are part of a collective consciousness my work would...