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.