Mirrorman

Discusses the relationship between the drawings and paintings of the Belgian artist Luc Tuymans (b.1952). The author draws the analogy between Tuymans's artistic practice and the structure of the classic detective story in terms of the investigative gathering and collation of images, the transcription of drawings into paintings revealed as the crime of forgery, and the artist as culprit. She comments on the significance of titles of works such as Premonition (1994; col. illus.), Into the Night (1989; illus.), and Missing Person (1993), considers the role of abstraction in the work Gas Chamber (1986), and compares the composition of the painting The Flag (1985; col. illus.) with its drawing. She concludes by describing the ambiguity of the artist's perspective configured in the painting Premonition, and in an untitled diptych drawing from 1990 featuring three figures and a mirror.