Felix Treadwell
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Courtesy: Felix Treadwell Living and working: Taipei, Taiwan.
Biography
Felix Treadwell, born in Maidstone, England, in 1992, is an artist known for his distinctive paintings featuring fictional characters engaged in everyday actions. After studying art at Camberwell College of Arts, he specialized in painting at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 2018. Treadwell has gained recognition for his works centered around the semi-autobiographical character, Feelo.
Feelo, a character inspired by Treadwell’s own experiences, serves as a protagonist exploring various worlds, inadvertently acting as a representation of both the artist and the viewer. Through simple compositions, playful scenes, and the softness of airbrush techniques, Treadwell breathes life into his childhood imagination, evoking a sense of nostalgia.
Describing Feelo as an anonymous protagonist initially, Treadwell realized that the character is more autobiographical, embodying an androgynous quality. Feelo is depicted as an outsider infiltrating different worlds, reflecting on personal experiences and engaging the viewer in the exploration of unfamiliar territories.
Treadwell’s cartoon-esque figures, painted with a combination of spray and acrylic in a muted palette, possess a hypnotic and otherworldly presence. Their quasi-abstracted form, divorced from a specific place or time, invites contemplation. The deliberate banality of these compositions, reminiscent of childhood innocence, provides a respite from the overwhelming speed and abundance of imagery in contemporary digital culture.
The artist acknowledges a recurrent theme in his work, where he revisits childhood and youth, exploring feelings of longing and the impact of nostalgia. Treadwell aims to bring optimism and positivity to a world that he perceives as increasingly sad.
His art exudes a tangible nostalgia for youth, featuring human figures, fantasy creatures, animals, and dinosaurs rendered in soft, pastel-hued gradients. Treadwell employs airbrushing, hand-painted acrylic elements, pencil and crayon sketches, fibreglass sculptures, and oil stick drawings. Influenced by Superflat movement artists, manga, anime, traditional Japanese printmaking, woodcarving, and 2000s fashion blogs, Treadwell captures a sentimentality associated with the dawn of the internet.
In his exhibition “Buff Titan” Treadwell presented a series of paintings depicting figures in various stages of evolution, forming a playful version of the recognizable Darwinian diagram. This evolution serves as a metaphor for the journey of identity, reflecting on the tumultuous and tender process of self-discovery with thoughtfulness and understated humor.
Some paintings by Felix Treadwell
