Thierry Lefort at Gallery 33

Gallery 33 at The Georgian Hotel presents a new solo exhibition by French artist Thierry Lefort, in collaboration with Villa Albertine, Yoyo Maeght, and Show Gallery, with a selection of works also on view at the French Consul General Residence in Beverly Hills. Lefort is known for his meditative approach and mastery of subtle tones and for this show he unveils his striking Blue Series alongside Bleu Californien Lefort, a custom pigment created for LeFranc Bourgeois ( the historic french paint house) and inspired by Los Angeles’ unique light.

This exhibition marks his second solo show in LA, offering a poetic yet unconventional vision of the city’s landscapes.

Your Blue Series presents a very personal vision of Los Angeles. What drew you to L.A. as a subject, and what sensations did you want to capture? 

I want to capture the most unique and intimate corners of LA, not the touristic places and want to show things and corners that people do not see or know about the city in general.

You often highlight everyday moments: empty streets, architectural forms, fleeting light. How do you decide which aspects of the city become the focus of your paintings?

I chose each subject of my paintings and it is usually not necessarily just the one place I picture, but rather many unique elements that make it special and so unique. I walk around the city a lot, and get inspired. The light itself will actually determine which place will be important for me to paint. It is the light that generates a contrast and what I am interested in is finding a good percentage of light and dark. It is a unique sensation that I experience when I experience LA’s contradictions and I depict those in the contrasts between light and dark colours in my works. 

Los Angeles is usually portrayed as vibrant and busy, but your works often feel quiet and contemplative. Is this intentional?

It is intentional because I extrapolate only the elements that I find interesting for my works and those where I want to draw the viewer’s attention to. Most of the time there are no humans in my paintings because I want the viewers to be the subjects of the works and imagine themselves as if they are walking around the area I depicted in my painting. In fact, the mural that I did on the Burbank wall is a big example of that because when people walk along the mural they can really imagine themselves being in the painting. In the future, I could paint humans too but it is very likely that they will be the only focus of my paintings, not just an additional element . 

How has Chinese calligraphy influenced the gestures and structure in your work?

Chinese calligraphy inspired my gesture and the depth of my brushstroke and its repetition, the breathing which determines the rhythm of my painting; it helps me focus and concentrate for a long period of time. At first, I became acquainted with Calligraphy and with the Japanese prints I saw in books and illustrations when I was 16.  Particularly, I was fascinated by the works and artistry of Hokusai, Utamaro, Hiroshige.

Cézanne’s devotion to sensation and structure is often mentioned in relation to your art. How do you reinterpret his lessons for today’s landscapes?

I love Cèzanne because he let his sensations guide him when he was painting outside on the spot “en plein air" and the way he felt about what he saw became more important than the subject of his paintings itself, he brought his own sensation on the canvas. At the same time, he trusted nature completely and turned to it to give him those unique sensations. He also left an open door for his legacy with his studies about spheres, cones, cylinders and concentric vision, the grey dot (point gris).  Most importantly, he tried to unpack the duality between form and brushstroke. I read a lot of texts by Gill de Louze who wrote a lot of literature on Cèzanne, and focused specifically on his process of making a painting and according to Cèzanne, to make a good painting you have to lose yourself in it and in the process and he did so. Like Cèzanne, I also did a lot of painting “en plain air” and to this day I still keep on getting inspiration from Nature but to go even deeper and really immerse myself in my works I finish working on them in my studio to build up on them and really work thoroughly on their many layers and to work more on each composition. 

Your paintings feel minimalistic yet deeply layered. How do you balance simplicity with complexity in your compositions?

The big implication is the result of complexity so my way of painting can be simple apparently but simplifying is very complicated. Let me explain myself: if the way I draw is simple, I then will have to add a layer of complexity through colour. It is all about balance: when you simplify a layer of the painting you will have to make the subsequent one more complicated and I do that through colour. If I were to keep on simplifying there would be nothing left, but I chose to add that complexity, vibrancy, and richness through colour. 

Your work has been described as meditative and Zen-like. Do you see painting as a form of mindfulness or spiritual practice?

I would say that painting is actually both for me: it is very spiritual as I would like to be conscious about everything I am inspired by so that I can bring up a superior view of things. I try to simplify reality by keeping what is beautiful and adopting a superior way of looking at things. Generally, I try to be instinctive: I do not have many rituals, and as soon as I spot one I try to change it. I need to go with the flow of the moment. 

Many of your works explore the tension between natural and man-made light. What role does light play in your artistic vision?

I am interested in light but what truly fascinates me are the shadows that light creates. For instance, when the light hits a wall, I am interested in what the wall gives back and the shades that it throws back at us. I am interested in how objects are going to be wrapped by this unique and singular atmosphere created by light. 

Looking back at your career from Paris to Tokyo to Los Angeles, how do you think your style has evolved?

Through the years my style has evolved and has become more complex in order to research for that simplicity. I look for the real essence of things and that is where their strength lies. I try to eliminate from my paintings anything that can weaken them and distract from the real essence of the subject. When I put something useless in a painting I feel a tension which is unnecessary, therefore I start removing what I feel is responsible for that tension. Each one of my paintings is linked to the next one I will start and I am always more interested in the next one; not in the one I am currently working on but on the one I will do tomorrow. I am always, and constantly evolving: like water in a stream, and I learnt this in China. 

What do you hope viewers feel or experience when standing in front of one of your paintings?

I hope to enrich the viewer by presenting them something that they do not know about colour and form. I hope to instill in them fulfillment, and some kind of spirituality, a breath of newness, and an escape. I enjoy being exposed to new things to discover. I love to transform reality: I deform it and create something new from it. Reality is like a trampoline for me and I always go back to Nature like Cèzanne, it is my main and primary source of inspiration. 

Are there subjects or themes you have yet to explore but feel drawn to in the future?

Strangely enough, subjects as in humans are not something I am mostly interested in. I prefer to go inwards, and the subject I paint is just a pretext to look at what is meaningful to me. In the future, I would like to experiment with bigger formats and associations of multiple colours which I have not yet experimented with. At the moment, I have the impression that I am not done with LA yet and that I still have to dig out things from LA. Los Angeles is like the Water lilies for Monet or Cezanne' s Saint Victorie:  LA is my obsession, and it is still my open question, and for the time being, it keeps on inspiring me.