The artist Ficre Ghebreyesus found painting to be “the miracle, the final act of defiance through which I exorcized the pain and reclaimed my sense of place, my moral compass, and my love for life.” Born in Eritrea in 1962, the teenage Ghebreyesus fled his homeland during the country’s war of independence and was a refugee in several countries before settling in New Haven, Connecticut. In 2012, at the age of 50, he died unexpectedly of heart failure. The artist’s legacy is kept alive by Galerie Lelong, and by his widow, the award-winning poet and writer Elizabeth Alexander (she recounts their love story in her memoir The Light of the World). Ghebreyesus left more than 700 paintings, most of which were not exhibited during his lifetime. Oscillating between figuration and abstraction, his dreamlike works conjure memories, folktales, musings, and Eritrean culture, while his keen eye for color adds a complex aura of enchantment. The artist’s first Paris exhibition is centered around two “Map Quilt” paintings from 1999, and will feature a series of small landscapes along with pastel works from the 1990s. —Nyla Gilstrap