Ceysson & Bénétière

It’s a show with paintings, for painting and about painting, with a poetic title somehow in relation to the show. R.Q.

Roland Quetsch’s strong sense of color already made an impression for his first show with in Luxembourg. His latest works from the C series follows in the same colorful approach. The C series consists in large colorful assemblages of different color panels that form stripe paintings. Although it is a very recurrent subject in the history of painting, it has never been treated like this before. The overwhelming presence of the modular construction - based on the idea of support fragmentation- is equally important in these works than the work on colors.In this exhibition,the way of building up colors is often of different nature, showing the wide range of color treatment in his works.

Although color is equally important in the IF series, this one plays more with the physical dimension of painting.Over the last few years,Roland Quetsch’s work has evolved toward the third dimension. The IF series is based on the idea of re-fragmenting a modularly reconstructed surface. The elaboration of modular canvases undergo a complete panel/support treatment in order to build up the colors before being freely fragmented and assembled to give shape to very physical works. By doing so, the works refer to a more classical approach of composition; with the difference that in these works, the elements are now real modular canvases – meaning objects in themselves - instead of painted surfaces. This specific strategy naturally emphasizes the dimension of physicality.
The exhibition will also feature some of Roland Quetsch’s new works from the HP series. Over the last year, the latter has developed a growing interest for different ideas of presentation. His recent practice questions the “display system“, especially trough replacing static with non-static mounting. In this case, hinges. The work can therefore be manipulated and move in space. With the HP series, color spreads even deeper in the gallery space and paintings loose a lot of their mural presence. We are still looking at painting, but the boundariesofthemediuminthisserieshave been even further.
In addition,Roland Quetsch will also present some of his recent studio experiments. These are mainly smaller and exclusive works that are show a free approach inspired by the artist’s researches around material However their quality of presence isequallystrongthanhisfragmentedworks.
Viewers will not find clear references in the non-literal title of the exhibition but instead the thread the artist followed for the elaboration of his works. It might also a statement about peace, love and painting history.The answer being less a definite answer than a phrase that could be repeated as a mantra.
In this exhibition, Roland Quetsch provides us a vast overview of his painting practice.