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HERVÉ LENOUVEL - Sitting beautifully between landscape and abstraction, Hervé Lenouvel’s paintings capture not simply how a place looks, but how it feels.

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Working instinctively in oils, Lenouvel builds his landscapes through expressive layers of colour, texture and movement. Sweeping horizons, reflections, distant trees and shifting skies emerge from energetic marks and richly worked surfaces, giving just enough suggestion of the landscape while leaving space for the viewer’s imagination.

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Colour sits at the heart of his practice. Cool, atmospheric blues meet flashes of burnt orange, pink, violet and ochre; light appears to break through the surface, while areas of thick, gestural paint give each composition a wonderful sense of depth and movement.

 

There is an immediacy to the work that reflects Lenouvel’s process, rather than meticulously recreating a particular view, he paints from observation, memory and feeling, retaining only what he considers essential.

Although his work can appear abstract, Lenouvel considers himself deeply connected to figurative painting. Nature remains the starting point: water, earth, trees, changing weather and the quality of morning or evening light.
These familiar elements are loosened and reimagined until the landscape becomes something more emotive and personal.

Perhaps this is what makes Lenouvel’s paintings so easy to connect with. They feel familiar without belonging entirely to one place.

Landscapes that can remind you of somewhere you have been, somewhere you love, or simply somewhere you would like to disappear into.

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Born in Brittany and largely self-taught, Lenouvel developed his distinctive approach through years of experimentation before finding oil paint; a medium whose richness and physicality perfectly suited his expressive way of working. Today, he continues to live and work in Brittany, with his paintings collected and exhibited internationally.

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