Felix Bode is a Berlin-based artist who graduated with a BA in Painting and Printmaking from the Glasgow School of Art in 2024. Felix’s practice delves into the growing space between figuration and abstraction - the counterpart of the fading connection humans have to the material world. The monumental paintings exhibited during the Degree Show, a reflection on the detached inner gaze of travellers lost in thought, won the Arts Thread Global Graduate Award 2024.
Felix currently works and exhibits with Studio 101, a young artist collective in a self-run space in an emerging part of Berlin. Exploring the system of the city’s underground train connections led to a series of paintings that mirror the urban rhythms and rituals of modern life. The imagery he uses, whether it is the post-industrial landscapes, the patterns of tiles or seats, or the darkness of a tunnel that passes the window at high speed, speaks of disconnection and isolation that is brought on, paradoxically, by the fast connectivity.
Felix has written a poem to accompany the work:
What seem to us to be the most absent moments of lives,
waiting, checking the station sign, tapping our feet (or fingers).
This daily ritual for people who live in the city.
It’s equally silent as it is loud,
tik tak tik tak it moves without you noticing,
ZURÜCK BLEIBEN BITTTEE!
The force of the train pulls you in and out of your seat, sometimes shuddering when you ride at peak hour.
Staring at the faces around you.
You easily see 100 faces in a day but you don’t remember any of them, nor do they you.
WAAhWAAhWAAhWAAh
Now, there is a pair of shoes I like.
Zukzukzukzukzukzukzik
I feel like a rat rushing through these underground ways and steps,
to the bus,
It’s actually full of anticipation and excitement,
This suspiciously warm seat,
These orange tiles,
this station is mine!
