“I listen to what the picture tells me and I allow it to lead me,” says Karol Felix, and we listen together with him. His graphic works and paintings show things which are to us intimately familiar. It is as if we have already seen them somewhere or have experienced them sometime. The artist’s original view, however, is an assurance that this graphic world comes to us in a new and fresh setting. It is a world of strong human feelings in which the protagonists hold on to a fragile mental equilibrium. Karol Felix convinces us that the impossible becomes possible and the invisible becomes visible. Author does not count on public success, although for his graphic works and stamp designs he is internationally renowned and avidly sought after by collectors. Karol Felix sometimes reminds one of the photographer of Blowup by Michelangelo Antonioni, who by photographing one motif takes us through its enlargement to further connections. And it does not matter whether the original is abstract or real. Through technique, Karol Felix achieves an unbearably light and fragile equilibrium: the simplification developed its own magic. Looking on his paintings and graphics is equally as exciting as listening their desires.
Ľudo Petránsky
Karol Felix was born on July 26,1961 in Košice. From 1981 to 1987 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava at the Department of Free Printmaking and Book Illustration under the supervision of prof. Albín Brunovský. After completing his studies, he moved to Nitra where he works as freelance artist. He is involved in painting, drawing, printmaking, book illustrations, sculpture, and the design of objects, installations, and postage stamps. He is a co-founder of the G Bod (G Spot) graphic association, a member of the Slovak Union of Visual Arts, the Union of Graphic Designers of Slovakia, the Hollar Association of Czech Graphic Artists and an honorable member of the Society of Scottish Artists. He has prepared 78 solo exhibitions in 16 countries and participated in more than 250 collective exhibitions and competitions in Slovakia, Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa, and Australia. He is a recipient of many domestic and foreign awards and prizes (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Belgium, Scotland, Ukraine, Russia, France, USA, Canada, South Korea and China) and has lectured as a guest artist in the USA, South Africa, the UAE, Mexico, France, Scotland and China. He has also curated more than 30 exhibitions and projects in Slovakia and abroad.
