Postcrossing: Margo from Belgium

Margo, Belgium

BE-387549

Requested Address: 27 August 2015

Received: 15 September 2015

Travel Time: 19 Days

Distance: 10,513 km

"Creepy" is the adjective people used to describe the image featured on this postcard (sent to me by Margo from Belgium) when I showed it to them. Well, that's Belgian artist Michaël Borremans' work for you. 

Known for his haunting yet beautiful portraits of people in "partial" states, Borremans is heavily influenced by artists like Degas, Manet, and Velázquez. He often creates paintings with moods ranging from lonely, to mysterious, to dark.

The painting on the postcard Margo sent me is an oil on canvas piece titled "The Angel", which was completed in 2013. Tagged by viewers as Borreman's Mona Lisa, "The Angel" is depicted by a stoic-looking woman with a charred face wearing a pastel-pink dress. Little do people know, it was Belgian model and actress Hannelore Knuts who posed as the woman in the painting. If you're really curious about that particular aspect of Borremans' creative process, you can read more about it here.

***This postcard is one of the six I received on September 15, 2015. Yep, you read that right - SIX! I had never received that much postcards via Postcrossing at the time! Needless to say, I was super thrilled to see a bunch of postcards waiting on me. 

♥Andy