Alexandre Lenoir: On the Edge

“They shock you right away,” the French curator Sébastien Gokalp says of Alexandre Lenoir’s paintings, “assaulting your taste buds, releasing sugar and citric acid.” Lenoir’s dreamlike landscapes, interiors, and buildings can claim multiple influences. The painter grew up in the Caribbean, spent a year’s residency in Morocco, and today resides in one of Paris’s most industrial neighborhoods. In his work, barely visible silhouettes float within an incandescence of color. Lenoir’s foliage and water bring to mind Monet, and even his urban scenes are rendered ephemeral. —E.C.