FELIX BEAUDRY
Congenital Knot

FEBRUARY 22 - APRIL 18, 2020
OPENING SATURDAY FEBRUARY 22, 6 - 8 PM

SITUATIONS presents Felix Beaudry's first solo show, titled Congenital Knot, opening on Saturday, February 22, 2020. Beaudry uses a three-pronged methodology of digital drawing, knit tapestry, and sculpted costume. He programs industrial knitting machines and creates textiles by hand using yarn and fiber. Knit tapestries hang beside digital drawings, and a yarn “muscle suit” activates the floor space. Drawing and painting are a large part of the process, employing pornography, personal mythology, and his own body to create the tapestries and performative costume on view.

Beaudry’s digital drawings harness nudity and sexuality, capturing his fascination with being exposed and on display. The bodies portrayed are undergoing a libido-driven metamorphosis. They change with and against each other. The work reflects an aspirational butch-dyke warrior and a pretty twink thrown over a brawny shoulder. They play with space and an appreciation of bodies that may never come out of puberty, are in-between gender, and resist being resolved. Drawing upon personal experience and playing with relationships, bodily transitions, and gender, Beaudry experiments with both clothing and nudity. Apparel changes the physical experience in daily life and also acts as an extension of persona. Beaudry’s fiber works reflect and live in the space between skin and world - both disguising and distending into their lived environments, the works permute a fetishistic feeling that exceeds the material confines of illustration.

Additionally, technology is used as an art-making tool. It is not the subject of the work, but an important component. Sketches on iPads make use of acidic computerized color palettes. These blueprints undergo a transformation into threaded configurations and are expanded into physical space. Imagery is programmed using Photoshop, Nedgraphics, and Stoll M1 Plus, then fed into Industrial Knitting machines or Stoll knitting machines. Part of the process entails Beaudry pushing the limits of the machine’s and the technology’s capabilities.

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FELIX BEAUDRY (b. 1996 Berkeley, CA; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) graduated with a BFA from RISD in 2018. Congenital Knot at SITUATIONS is his first solo show in New York City.  Recent exhibitions include Fresh Fruit at Situations, 2018 (New York, NY) Rocking Rookies at Tatjana Pieters 2019 (Gent, Belgium); ecdysis II at ltd Los Angeles 2019 (LA, CA), and Designing Traditions at the RISD Museum 2018.