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Alexandre Lenoir, born in 1992, mainly paints landscapes inhabited by often ghostly figures who remain indifferent to the viewer. His paintings are based on photographs he selects as memories of happy moments, although dominated by an imposing natural world to which he allows a degree of unpredictability. Rather than faithfully depicting nature, he seeks an alchemy that gives rise to works that appear to have been created spontaneously, almost without the artist’s intervention. A surprising melancholy emanates from these familiar scenes bathed in brilliant light. For the 16th contemporary counterpoint at the musée de l’Orangerie, Alexandre Lenoir is presenting four previously unseen paintings.
Lenoir works from instructions he gives either to himself or to assistants who are not painters, using images transformed by time—both the time elapsed between the photograph being taken and the painting being made, and the time required for its slow creation. He applies countless layers of paint, from lightest to darkest, over a multitude of small pieces of masking tape that alternately conceal and reveal the canvas, translating without “romantic” effects the projected image from which he paints. Alexandre Lenoir: “It began with a painting entitled Les Cévennes, where, to depict the surface of the water and its reflections, I had to find a way to apply as few brushstrokes as possible. That was when the strips of tape came into play, as a way of preparing the ground for the washes of paint that I swept laterally across the canvas like a printer. At the end, when I removed the tape, I saw an image as though I had dreamed it—its architecture and framing had been there from the outset, but within it, the paint had fully come into its own. I subsequently developed a very intimate relationship with this translational method, which leads me to mask, cover, and then uncover. In short, it is a form of revelation that may evoke photographic development. It allows me to leave a space of freedom for the viewer looking at the finished canvas, because I do not want to be the only one imposing the image on them.” In this respect, the painter’s ambition echoes Monet’s desire to work with perception and the invisible: “I have once again taken on things that are impossible to do,” Monet wrote to Gustave Geffroy on June 22, 1890, “water with grass swaying beneath the surface […] it is wonderful to see, but trying to paint it is enough to drive you mad. Still, I always tackle these things!” (Letter quoted in Gustave Geffroy, Monet, sa vie, son œuvre [1924], Paris, Macula, 1980, p. 30). Alexandre Lenoir explores the tension between an assertive realism and creative processes that are as elaborate as they are experimental. He works on “the act of seeing” in relation to the gesture that creates the image—the movement of the water and that of the tree—forming a kind of ecosystem comparable to the one envisioned by Claude Monet when he conceived his large decorative panels: “I was tempted to use this theme of the Nymphéas to decorate a drawing room: carried along the walls, enveloping every surface in its unity, it would have created the illusion of an endless whole, a stretch of water without horizon or shore.” (Claude Monet quoted by Roger Marx, “Les Nymphéas de M. Claude Monet,” Gazette des beaux-arts, June 1909). “When I rediscovered the Nymphéas,” Lenoir explains, “I was struck by the way the water moved in rhythm with the changing light in the exhibition rooms. The materiality of the canvases was such that the light would catch on them one moment and immediately slip away the next, creating the constant movement of water before my eyes. I am deeply interested in painting as a living entity. Through repetitive gestures and their unpredictable effects, life in the studio always produces an image that surprises me while fully embodying the water in the paintings I will present for the exhibition.” He questions what it means to be a painter, and it is undoubtedly this questioning that can be felt in his complex paintings despite their seemingly straightforward appearance. He often recalls the words of artist Niele Toroni, “Work so that the painting works by itself,” which he adopts as a rule to be both followed and transgressed.
Admission: €0 to €12.50.
Source: paris.fr — photo: Charles Roussel