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The Hole is pleased to announce Delicate Sun, the first solo exhibition in New York of new paintings by British artist Felix Treadwell.

The idiom “looking for a place in the sun” generally suggests a search for a desirable location. In a more poetic way, it indicates a pursuit of mental balance and existential well-being. And in Felix Treadwell’s case, the sun itself proved to be the force that kept his sanity in check when it was most needed. So while contemplating his New York solo debut at The Hole, the London-based artist looked back at his old, reliable, warm friend: the sun.

Taking place in early summer, when the city’s pavement and concrete start adding to the sweeping heat, Delicate Sun celebrates the life force radiating from the nearly-perfect ball of hot plasma at the center of the Solar System. Thinking about the vital energy we’re sourcing from it and its pivotal effect on our psyche, the sun’s existentially paramount role is captured through its eternal presence. Spellbound by the profound effect it has on his own psyche, a star often considered as the god itself is personified as a gentle, sensitive, and tender character: a companion that’s interacting, playing, and dancing with the figures, often mimicking their moves and postures while providing them vital energy. Such an approach shifts the protagonist to the inferior position from which they worship this principal, powerful but friendly healing force. Their connection is presented through repetitive dance-like interaction, intensifying the perspective and proportions play that this body of work introduces.

On a technical level, the canvases are painted in a way that catches and sustains the briskness and the innocence of the intuitive drawing method; a method through which a hotchpotch of strokes, gestures, and “errors” forms a figure and its surroundings. Trying to replicate a specific moment captured in a rough sketch or line drawing, they hold onto the immediacy, spontaneity and joy of making them. This results in the cleanness and sharpness existing together with rough edges that define forms and elements in the image. The tension between essentially graphic-like language and the expressive, intuitive paint application helps mirror the spectrum of the protagonists’ personalities while nodding at Henri Matisse’s draughtsmanship. At the same time, it conveys the hectic dynamics of Treadwell’s reasoning mechanism that distills a range of intense and weighty thoughts into seemingly frivolous visuals.

Such a back-and-forth creative method reveals the work as being simple in its formal aspect but precarious to make or finalize; just as the question of identity might seem as straightforward and elementary but is infinitely perplexing and deceptive. Placed on a curved instead of a flat horizon, the scenes are swathed with a more jovial ambiance, making the views appear more icon-like and monumental. The fish-eye lens hints at fresh, contemporary aesthetics, suggesting a sense of urgency and dynamics by evoking skateboarding videos, Beastie Boys clips, or DIY culture. It also puts the viewer in a subdued position from which they’re looking up to the scene, transforming them into stylized visual metaphors akin to primitive iconographies such as the Bayeux Tapestry or hieroglyphics.

Where Treadwell’s previous exhibition had the subdued tone of soothing quietness, the new imagery is underlined with enthusiasm and rejoicing, radiating with affirmative energy and positivity. Still holding onto the melancholic undertone, the bubbly presence of the figures conveys a hopeful, uplifting, sometimes loud atmosphere. Zooming out of his most recognized body of work through a prism of an adolescent with more profound life experiences and expectations, the much more accessible visuals are painted using slightly restricted yet bold language. The smartening-up is backed by love and trust in this particular body of work and a new way of looking at and considering them both emotionally and technically.

The intensity of new thoughts, sentiments, and concerns prompted using a Milton Avery-like palette that energizes the scenes and underlines the recharging, revitalizing capacity of the sun. Invested in creating cogent, spirited metaphors for identity search and empowerment, the main characters represent the same person (the artist), who takes different shapes throughout the presentation. From several versions of the recognizable, slightly aged, androgynous Feelo character, over the insecure and armored medieval knight, to their incarnation as dinosaurs millions of years ago. Due to their shapeshifting nature, their emotion, mental state, and relationship with the environment become the main protagonist, while the figures get reduced to vessels that convey timelessness and ubiquity. Through such widened perspective, the work continues developing and growing while dealing with certain concerns at the same pace as the artist himself. The fluid feminine and masculine adolescent protagonists reveal the interest in how a person identifies themselves internally or presents themselves to the world. Somewhat naive and curious, they are on a never-ending quest to find a balance between adventurously experiencing the world and their own vulnerability and fragility.

— Saša Bogojev

Felix Treadwell (b. 1992, Maidstone, UK) lives and works in London, England. Combining acrylic and spray, Treadwell creates deceptively simple paintings that are simultaneously wistful, nostalgic and awkward. Treadwell holds a BFA from the Camberwell College of Art and an MFA from the Royal College of Art. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Kindred Lands’, (Stockholm, 2022) and Taipei Dangdai (Taipei, 2022) with Carl Kostyál.

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