Daniel Flammer "Les anneaux musicaux"

From 15 March to 16 April 2016

Daniel Flammer, " Les anneaux musicaux"

15 March – 16 April 2016 Opening on Tuesday 15 March from 6 p.m.

After Les Chants Captifs in 2013, the gallery Polad-Hardouin will present a new exhibition by Daniel Flammer from 15 March to 16 April 2016.

For the last three years or so, Flammer has been focusing on black-stone and charcoal drawings, a development of the approach started with his “subconscious landscape” paintings. The series presented here consists of about twenty drawings, including several spectacular large formats: all of them are part of a coherent universe of seamlessly structured fluxes. At first, due to their evident aesthetic kinship, one notices the connexion between the works, but the latter are also marked by internal connections. This highly homogenous series marks a new stage in Flammer’s artistic evolution and maturity.

Flammer’s work always starts from fragments and signs collected in places of transition such as train stations or large city avenues: the implicit pattern that emerges is then investigated and developed on paper. Without trying to build an imaginary city, the line conjures up architectural elements and post-industrial structures and combines them to create a bizarre universe. Brick vaults, railway tracks and merry-go-rounds appear to be abandoned in a parallel temporal dimension. No human presence can be found in these drawings, despite the numerous traces of human activities: constructions, security cameras, electric cables and machines of any form or shape recreate a slightly uncanny, labyrinth-like world. Are we facing a post-apocalyptical wasteland? The vegetal creepers that appear on some of the drawings suggest that nature is slowly taking over the landscape. Strongly influenced by cinematographic and artistic references, Flammer also draws inspiration from comic strips, sci-fi and anticipatory works such as those of Moebius. These sources, however, are expressed through a work on textures and contrasts that also evokes the wealth of classical etchings. The artist does not hesitate to erase and rework parts of the drawing, varying the thickness of the lines and the relationship between full and empty spaces.

In particular, the strong contrasts of the details in his medium-format drawings testify to his technical mastery, with blacks so intense that they evoke wood engravings or German expressionism… Structural elements rather than reconstructions of cities, his drawings have a fragmentary quality that triggers the imagination: the paper presents a few blank areas, although the drawing in itself is complete.

These deliberate blanks allow the drawing to breathe and give a new depth to the patterns. Individually consistent and perfectly interconnected, the drawings form a mosaic of infinite variations. And nothing can stop this universe from growing... A catalogue will be published, with a preface by Olympe Lamut. Polad-Hardouin gallery will take part in the Art Paris Art Fair 2016; for the occasion, a large drawing by Daniel Flammer will be presented from 31 March to 3 April under the vault of the Grand Palais. The other artists presented include: Timothy Archer, Christophe Boursault, Raynald Driez, and Andrew Gilbert.