Roland Flexner
dal 30/3/2015 al 8/5/2015
Segnalato da
30/3/2015
Roland Flexner
Massimo De Carlo, London
At The End Of The Day. The artist conducts an exploration of how the element of chance influences the making of these drawings, which appear to the viewer as a series of uncanny landscapes.
Massimo De Carlo gallery is proud to present At The End Of The Day, the first exhibition in London
by French artist Roland Flexner.
Roland Flexner’s practice is focused on drawing with ink. The artist conducts an exploration of how
the element of chance influences the making of these drawings, which appear to the viewer as a
series of uncanny landscapes. As put by the artist: “ It is all about what the viewer sees in it, the
viewer makes the picture.”
The artist’s meticulous research into this process found him developing a series of unique
techniques that always avoid direct contact between him and the paper. He uses manipulation,
breath, water or gravity in order to document the potential of this material, pushing it to a pictorial
dimension.
In At The End of The Day the artist will present three new series of works. For each series the artist
has experimented with distinct types of paper, procedures and inks: from simple black liquid
graphite to more coloured tonalities such as gold and indigo blue.
The manipulations that the artist has used to control the flow of the ink vary from one drawing to
another, alternating gestures such as tilting (use of gravity), blowing (with or without straws),
spraying water mist over the drawing, friction and pressure applied on the back of the drawing.
Within the series of drawings, which are divided by colour, the landscapes look at the same time
similar yet entirely different to each other: light and shadows, details and resemblances are the result
of different types of gestures.
For Roland Flexner these drawings are connected and resonate to his fascination for the Pierres De
Reve (picture stones), stones whose surfaces look like figurative paintings. As for his drawings these
stones also document the flow of organic material, where chance acts once again as artist and a
creator.
The time that Flexner can spend on each drawing varies according to how the image is resolved and
how long it takes for the medium to settle. Time is a key element in the artists practice as alluded by
the steampunk hourglass that sits in the window. As put by the artist himself: “The idea of landscape
is inseparable from time, as it is a recording of time itself. Time is a flow that is driven by events,
every single one of my drawings is an event in a state of becoming.”
At The End of The Day is structured as an immersive and introspective path into the depths of the
relationship between chance and order; nature and art; imitation and observation; time and process.
Roland Flexner was born in Nice, France in 1944. He Lives and works in New York. His drawings
are part of the permanent collections ofprominent institutions such as, among others:
Metropolitan Museum, New York; Whitney Museum, New York; Centre Pompidou in Paris;
Albright Know Museum, Buffalo; Shanghai Contemporary Art Museum, The Power Station,
Shanghai; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.
Massimo De Carlo gallery
55 South Audley Street, W1K 2QH London
Tue/Sat: 10.00am - 6.00pm