How is it that Luc Tuymans’ apparently neutral and aloof paintings manage to be so unsettling? Does the viewer sense that there is something hidden beneath the surface, or is it simply a matter of their particular texture and style—the artist’s deliberate use of the “wrong” colors, for example? The paintings in Tuyman’s recent show entitled “Heimat” suggest that it could be a combination of both.

This series, which shared the same title as the show, dealt with themes related to the extreme right in Flanders. Tuymans’ approach in these paintings seemed in many ways familiar: one found the same