Already internationally recognized for his ink and soap bubble drawings, Roland Flexner began working with rare Sumi pigments during a lengthy stay in Kyoto, Japan last year. Using the Suminagashi method in which ink is transferred to paper from the surface of water, Flexner has only a few seconds before it dries to act upon the inked surface with decisive gestures. Saturated with intense black Sumi ink, these drawings evoke nocturnal landscapes, geological formations and distant stars. Also on view is a never-before exhibited painting by Flexner from the 1980s. Entirely gilded with metal leaves and chosen for its luminous and reflective surface, it acts as a counterpoint to the Sumi ink drawings.

Flexner has had recent solo exhibitions at Galleria Massimo De Carlo in Milan, Italy and the Instituts Franco-Japonais of Tokyo and Yokohama. His work was included in Recent Acquisitions at The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and is represented in museum collections in Paris, Nice, Strasbourg, Saint Etienne and Amiens, France, as well as the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University and the Arkansas Art Center. He was a Laureate of Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto in 2004.

Flexner’s upcoming exhibitions include the Kunst-Museum in Ahlen, Germany, the 4th Berlin Biennial, the Flint Institute of Arts in Flint, MI and a solo show of new drawings in Tokyo at the Itsutsuji Gallery. His work will appear in Vitamin D, a survey of contemporary drawings to be published by Phaidon Press later this month and in Les Vanités dans l’Art Contemporain by Editions Flamarion, Paris. A hardcover book of Flexner’s works on paper 1:1 Roland Flexner was published by Michel Baverey Éditeur in 2002.