Floored

Press Release for Floored

An exhibition of new works from Felix Treadwell and Lewis Henderson at Camberwell College of Arts, February 2018. Curated by Alia Hamaoui.

Taken at first glance, it may seem hard to reconcile a family of cute red mushrooms with the green anatomy of a motherboard. Where one reminds me of childish adolescence - reading comic books and drawing cartoons - the other fills me with teenage dread: exposed wires and glitchy screens. Felix Treadwell and Lewis Henderson are both artists that come with their own set of cultural references and inside jokes, whether it be the angst-ridden portraits of Yoshïtomo Nara or a PowerPoint show of Martin Kippenberger’s Model Interconti (1987).

In some senses they seem a world apart, yet at the heart of their practices is a common consideration of what it means to grow up in the here and now, in a social milieu burying its head in the wake of postmodern relativism: the final remanence for the possibility of something new. It’s sad to say, but for our generation it’s almost a platitude to speak of anxiety under late capitalism; the sense that we are trapped, unable to escape from the system. This is something that both artists have regularly explored in their work, albeit each with a different trajectory.

In Felix’s previous work he has followed the cartoon character Rupert as he meanders the social pressures and woes of teenage melancholy. He is seen doe eyed, sat at purple computer screens, chasing birds in the park and having a quick swim. All the while he treasures a gormless smile that keeps him at peace with the world, his frequent tears and protracted nose telling us otherwise. These are the paradoxical affects of a subject merrily resigned to the condition of eternal loneliness, a concept very much at home online.

His new series of paintings diverge quite clearly from this narrative. The few human characters presented are not shown with a grin, but a puzzled expression. As one waits tentatively for eight single drops of rain to splatter on their head, two others stare out nonplussed to the anonymous smoke of a far off fire. The real characters this time are the mushrooms and trees; staged in a moment of adolescent reflection, they resound the familiar griefs of political ennui and social dislocation. However, caught in the limp posture of a baby shroom, or the bland profile of a moonlit pine tree, these social ills are charged with a cosmic despair. They become their own little worlds; totems for the anaemia of our ecological sense.

Moving away from his previous work on canvas, Lewis has begun a new series of works using the dismembered bodies of digital photo frames, coupled with the programming of exposed motherboards. His piece Snapz (2018) takes found images online to elaborate a well-known joke in the service industry: the immortalisation of ad hoc staff in online wedding photos. 

There’s a certain comedy to be had here, the uncanny moment you spot yourself in a stranger’s holiday snaps. But taken with the Photoshopped outlines of his cropped subjects, Lewis points to the increasing role of biometric technologies in surveillance techniques. Living in London - the most CCTV equipped city on Earth - these systems will not only track your present movements, but your future and past too. This unsavoury thought is magnified in the post-cyberpunk aesthetics of his steel brackets, exposed nails and laminated chipboard. A retort to contemporary mysticisms abounding in the technological sublime: those who would rather pray for their Wifi than fix it, the perverse mix of dystopia and eschatology that that is.

This aspect is analogous in Lewis and Felix’s works: the creation of new ‘realities’. Both present us with a comic circumstance; a reference to something cute or droll. Where one mines over, one mines under.

However, this is not what constitutes their aura as artworks. Indeed, one might argue that all ‘good art’ takes us to places we never knew exist. Rather, it is the subtle inscriptions of a social and technological milieu grounded in seclusion and control that establishes their potency as artworks. A subject of which I’m sure we are all too familiar, and to which I’ve no doubt they will return.

Any, More?

Press Release for Any, More?

An exhibition of new works from Thomas Greig and Lewis Henderson at Limbo Limbo, December 2017.

In the blink of an eye, everything in front of them had congealed into a single, amorphous entity. The market table in front of them, a thin tin-like sheet with a neatly trimmed edge, was suddenly home to a living monster. An assemblage of rusty scythes and trowels, busted GameCubes and pirate DVDs. The creature oozed a toxic mixture of copper bile and pink gouache, wriggling in the pan like an octopus waiting to be gutted. The longer they stared at this unnamed beast, the harder it became to discern its grim anatomy; its synthetic carcass writhing around an emaciated spine like an ouroboros – locked into a perpetual state of self-digestion.

Soon ten jellied eels began melting their way through the beast’s diaphragm. Currents of electricity throbbed from their bodies in a nauseating ripple, infusing the monster’s entrails with a carnivorous energy. Gnawed optical wires sparked with luminescence, muddied family-postcards acquired a lenticular movement, a set of mangled golf clubs spasmed like BigDog on ice. The pallid eels slowly receded again, weaving through the monster’s innards like a bobbet worm through soil. The oily and taut belly of the market-trader protruded from under a stained white vest, dripping with an obnoxious liquid. And as their leer reached upward, they were confronted with further unspeakable horror.

Where there would have usually sat a human face, was simply a blank rind of pale flesh. Its only visible details the stretch marks that pulled the oval mass of skin back in on itself. The stretch marks too had a sort of wicked energy to them: they rubbed and grazed against one another, as if itching a sore rash. The crowd had now grown to an insurmountable number, entering a frenzy. The swarm soon resembled a furious live chat: a rapid succession of bodies spontaneously emerging at its head, with those at the bottom sunk beneath its weight and crushed. Their eyes were all catatonic. As the sun set behind the stall a peculiar yellow gloom engulfed the sprawling market. Traders began shuffling endlessly between one another. Tables vanished and appeared, each home to a preying mass of bloodshot retinas.

The street’s cartography stretched from 1:1 to infinity. As the fabric of the air ripped and tore, the wild oscillations of a black and white substance enmeshed in their own molecular activity was revealed. Entangled and disjointed, the limbs of the crowd now levitated at least a foot from the ground. They pulsed like a jellyfish. The intensity of their stare had begun to seize control of the monster, a coordinated and collective gesture of the audience-body could cause the monster to lurch from one direction to another. The squirming face of the market trader convulsing inward like a black hole. Spasming, he coughed forth a nugget of fresh mucous, green with bubonic shades. It slumped on the table, whining and helpless.

With a click of ⌘F3 the scene shot back into the distance, joined by seven other variable wormholes: a pdf of his personal artist portfolio; several unfinished TextEdit docs coloured with turquoise and yellow highlights; a pirate copy of The Gagosian’s The Show Is Over catalogue. With a second click he was launched forward at incredible speed. Everything around him submerged into a deep crimson red. In an instant, nothing else had become intelligible, just limitless and pure colour. Hesitant for a moment, his finger gravitated in its former position. But soon the feeling was simply overwhelming. Staring into his glowing screen, he fell into it, like you would a fever, or a daydream.