56 Henry is pleased to present Zephyr, a collection of paintings by French artist Pierre Bellot. Zephyr marks Bellot's third solo exhibition with the gallery and occupies both gallery locations, 56 Henry Street and 105 Henry Street.

The title, which is a cognate in English and in French, refers to a soft gentle breeze and the feeling that it evokes. Conceptualized from sensation and instinct, the paintings in Zephyr are iterations of themselves. Bellot’s process is based on the change and evolution of an idea, the layers of paint on the canvases act as a testament to this process. As the images on the canvas gradually take shape, remnants of the former ideas remain visible in the thick application of the paint and the traces of initial sketches. Guided by intuition, Bellot is in collaboration with the compositional elements of the work, balancing the colors and forms, building up layers of paint, and looking for the painting to present him with an image at its completion, not the other way around. By viewing paintings as living objects, not perfectly defined and continuously moving forward, Bellot is able to imbue abstracted patterns with life and suggest stars, planets, and mountains in simple and sparse forms.

The effect is an atmosphere that exists between movement and stillness, a liminal space between the life and evolution of the works and the moment they are shown as complete. Even the physical stature of the paintings create movement. The variance in the size of the works reinforces energy within and among the paintings. The exhibition produces a rhythm and flow that encapsulates the viewer inside the world of the large works and then presents them with the exact opposite: a precious, holdable object.

The only figurative works in the exhibition are small portraits of cats. They serve as an interlude, a bridge between abstract works. Their diminutive size evokes religious icons, small portraits of deities or saints that are used as objects of veneration. There is humor and irony in these works: the mystique and dignity that is conferred through this type of portrait is contrasted with the modern association between cats and humor on the internet.

Bellot’s works rely on subtle shifts in shade and tone due to their concise color palette. This referencing and re-interpreting of impressionist masters renders his work familiar enough to highlight the ways in which Bellot’s conceptual underpinnings diverge from the art historical canon. The colors selected for Zephyr create a harmonic balance among the works and allude to the serenity central to the show’s namesake. Layers of new significance create a meandering path of associated meanings. The result, borne of intentional color blocking and skewed perspective, produce works that engage with still-life, landscape, and collage, culminating in an entirely new vocabulary for surface and space.