Thierry Lefort - Expo 2021 - Paris

First exhibition of the works of the artist Thierry Lefort presented by Yoyo Maeght .
The paintings were presented in an ephemeral space in the Marais, for five days only from September 15 to 19, 2021


“If I love running so much it’s because my life is on the finish line” Oil on canvas, 146 x 89 cm

Thierry Lefort, at the age of twelve, without any theoretical and technical training, spontaneously turned to painting. Pencils, brushes, pastels: he uses everything he can get his hands on to create his first drawings and his first paintings. Painting is for him the ideal means of expression to understand the world, its light, its colors and its beauty. An admirer of Cézanne, he faithfully applies his credo according to which “painting from nature is not slavishly copying, it is realizing one's sensations”. Painting is therefore his sensations, a light that dazzles him and a vision that touches him.

Lefort's painting is not devoid of a certain spirituality sometimes encountered in other cultures. Indeed, in 1997 and 2000, he traveled through the province of Henan in China, the cradle of Chinese civilization and kungfu. Then, it was through calligraphy and inspired by China and Japan, that he further developed his pictorial art by seeking to paint in an “effective, powerful and refined” way.
 From then on, Thierry Lefort moved towards a painting that some would describe as the “Renaissance of Figuration”, with all that this entails of simplicity, elegance and purity.

Thierry Lefort in his studio facing an oil on canvas, 180 x 180 cm

The strength and particularity of Thierry Lefort lie not only in his technique but also in his rereading of the world around him, in particular the industrial and urban world. He paints his paintings in situ, taking an enthusiastic look at places as diverse and innocuous as train stations, factories, bridges, parking lots. Often, in the representations he makes of these places, the human seems absent, yet we suspect it.

In his painting, everything is conducive to the rediscovery of beauty in everyday life. He favors grasping the world in its entirety, in the intensity and accuracy of its lights, its shapes and its colors. Make no mistake, Thierry Lefort does not seek to deliver a faithful image of the decor, landscapes or cities that he paints, with Thierry Lefort it is not the Painting that serves the landscape, but rather the landscape - with its lines, its dark or dazzling masses, its colors and its shapes - which serves the Painting to allow the perfect balance of the composition.
Notable venues that have presented Thierry Lefort's paintings include the Palais Constantin in St. Petersburg, Russia and, twice, the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, Japan. In September 2021, Yoyo Maeght is devoting a major exhibition to him in Paris, focusing on recent works that California inspires him.
This first collaboration is accompanied by the publication of three limited edition prints.

The booklet on Thierry Lefort to download here