Roland Quetsch
Moving Towards a Place Called Home
January 09 - February 15, 2025Roland Quetsch
Moving Towards a Place Called Home
January 09 - February 15, 2025
Roland Quetsch
In much of Quetsch’s work, the choice of materials, the means of manipulating them, and the spaces created by them are considered their content. The advantage of remaining within a traditional form such as painting is that it affords the ability to address the tenor, stresses and disarray of contemporary life from the vantage point of meditative remove, accompanied by sensate dramatics. This creates a psychic charge that seems to draw on the past as it fully addresses the present.
Joe Fyfe, excerpt from the catalogue 'Roland Quetsch', Editions Ceysson, 2018
Ceysson & Bénétière has collaborated for many years with artist Roland Quetsch, who once again surprises us with an entirely new presentation of his work on the occasion of the exhibition held at Ceysson & Bénétière, New York, in January 2025.
Since the beginning of his career, Roland Quetsch has worked with color, a theme he varies through a palette taking the form of tiles or strips. The artist structures his visual concept on stretched canvases while reinventing the very materiality of painting and pushing his approach further. Previously, as if zooming in to the extreme on a photograph, his smoothed colors, covered in a glossy varnish, appeared silky, almost liquid. The surface of the canvas, composed of multiple juxtaposed color tiles, presented a visual structure that conveyed the idea of arrangement.
Today, Roland Quetsch takes his practice further by allowing color to spread beyond the frame, pushing the boundaries of his work as we knew it. The canvas surface becomes a new field of exploration. The tiled construction gives way to a new form of pictorial expansion. The tiling transforms into an overlay of torn, cut, and individually worked pieces of canvas, remnants of the artist's ongoing experimentation in finding new forms and methods for applying paint, using simple gestures that sometimes lead to surprising, unplanned outcomes.
With this exhibition by Ceysson & Bénétière, Roland Quetsch takes us on a journey through color. A monumental corner installation of a wrack hanging unique pieces of fabric invites visitors to step into color and navigate through its layers. Facing this large-scale installation are watercolors, perhaps preliminary designs for the paintings of the East Room. An experiment or a constant search for the perfect combination?
Then, we encounter generously sized paintings where these strips of fabric are pasted and harmonized onto the surface of a traditional canvas. Here, we are introduced to a range of formats the artist never used before.
Each work is the result of reflection on the combination of colors, the result of folding, crumpling, or layering as part of the artist’s experimentation. The surface collage is raw and unpretentious. There is a certain honesty in it that perfectly reflects its creator.
Roland Quetsch was born in 1979 in Luxembourg. He lives and works in Capellen, Luxembourg. After obtaining a Master’s in Fine Arts from the University of Strasbourg, France, Roland Quetsch returned to Luxembourg, where he teaches Visual Arts and continues his practice as an independent artist.
Maëlle Ebelle, September 2024
Roland Quetsch: Moving Towards a Place Called Home
“Moving Towards a Place Called Home” presents the ongoing evolution of an artistic process that’s grounded in a solid conceptual foundation while simultaneously opening itself up to new forms of expression. In this exhibition, Roland Quetsch deepens his long-standing engagement with space, structure, construction, and deconstruction, not as a break from earlier phases, but as their expansion and refinement. His works emphasize an open dialogue between controlled structure and spontaneous gesture, between analytical clarity and emotional depth. It is within this tension that a newfound freedom unfolds—not through a dissolution of his previous practice, but through a deliberate and thoughtful transformation.
This process is made particularly visible in DS-FS-0624-1. The title, “Deep Space – Folded Space,” which is linked to the work’s creation date, suggests a reflection on spatial concepts that materializes in a layered composition. What initially appears as a dynamic play of colors and forms reveals, upon closer examination, a complex overlay of structures based on considerations of space—whether curved, stacked, or folded. This work exemplifies Quetsch’s pursuit of a new, more flexible understanding of space and movement, one that moves beyond traditional modernist approaches while retaining a sense of rigor. Analytical precision here is complemented by a sense of openness, allowing the work to freely move between construction and deconstruction, between image and the subtle accumulation of color traces, built up in delicate layers of raw pigment-based, custom-mixed paint.
Another focal point in the exhibition is The Day I Forgot About the Demons. This work, presented for the second time in a slightly altered form, epitomizes Quetsch’s view of the entirety of elements as the work itself—allowing it to be reconfigured for the exhibition without diminishing its conceptual value. In this piece, Quetsch more overtly addresses the intersection between order and rupture. The canvas consists of layered fragments that create an almost sculptural complexity, oscillating between architectural construction and fragile materiality. While the title hints at a personal confrontation, it only lends the work a subtle narrative undertone, avoiding an overtly autobiographical interpretation. This ambivalence—the shift between intimacy and distance—defines the work and allows the viewer to experience it as a snapshot of a continuous, reflective process.
Smaller watercolors, conceived as daily exercises, contribute a spontaneous, almost diary-like character to the exhibition. Each piece is titled by its date of creation, as if part of an ongoing dialogue between the artist and the medium. Hung without a fixed narrative structure, they impart a sense of lightness and immediacy that stands in contrast to the larger works. These watercolors may appear intuitive but are by no means accidental. Every color choice and each deliberate brushstroke reveal the same conceptual clarity that underpins Quetsch’s practice—manifested here in a freer, more playful form.
The site-specific installation CR331 initiates a dialogue between the exhibited works and the gallery space, emphasizing the principles of flexibility and adaptability that characterize Quetsch’s current practice. This installation not only reflects the spatial dimension of the works but also expands the exhibition’s thematic focus to another level. The way the installation integrates into the space mirrors the formal language of the canvases, underscoring that Quetsch’s engagement with space extends beyond the surface of his works and pervades the entire exhibition concept. The title “CR331” references a road in Luxembourg, just as “FV98” did in his previous show in Paris, alluding to movement through space—something that resonates with contemporary societal concerns around mobility and change.
“Moving Towards a Place Called Home” illustrates how radical change can emerge from a foundation of continuity and stability. It’s less about a new beginning and more about a continuation and refinement of previous practices. The exhibition shows how the analytical investigation of painting’s structural elements can lead to a deeper understanding of space, form, and color, without sacrificing the artist’s identity. This balance between the intellectual and intuitive aspects of painting, between conscious structure and playful freedom, imbues the works with their vitality.
The interdisciplinary approach of the artist becomes palpable in this show—the ability to create abstract compositions that are convincing not only in their conceptual strength but also in their emotional resonance. The exhibition acts as a form of stocktaking—a snapshot capturing the current stage of an ongoing journey. The works highlight a transition from the rigor of earlier series to a newfound freedom that does not exist in a vacuum but is deeply rooted in the conceptual strength of prior work phases. This freedom does not signify a rupture but rather an opening up that looks forward while remaining firmly grounded. Moving Towards a Place Called Home is less about arriving at a final destination and more about taking another step on a journey that constantly redefines and reshapes its own course.
Arthur Kluckers (10.2024)
Artist : Roland Quetsch
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10021 New York
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