Lenoir's paintings are like sour candy. They  shock you right away, assaulting your taste buds, releasing sugar and  citric acid. The colors persist on your retinas. (...) 

These landscapes, interiors, and buildings are as ephemeral as  memories, bearing the nostalgia of the past. Like snapshots from an old  photo album or flashes of dreams, they are unified through light around  the human figure. An ambiguous hedonism inhabits these visions, drawing  on the multiple identities of Alexandre Lenoir and influenced by the  Caribbean (he lived there during his youth and is from there by his  mother), Morocco (where he did a one-year residency), and the industrial  neighborhood of Paris where he has his studio. With their large scale  and their location on the lower level of the Brussels gallery, these  works immerse the viewer in a visual experience that recalls diving into  a pool. The diaphanous light of these paintings is offset by shifting  color ranges, a textured appearance, and figures that are lacking in  detail. This realism echoes the work of many 21st-century painters,  including Peter Doig, Daniel Richter, and Adrian Ghenie, indulging in  all the pleasures of this age-old medium while still offering a  reconstructed digital vision of reality. 

- Sébastien Gokalp