Heidi Herrera
Cataloguer
Lot 31
JOHANNES GUSTAFSSON(B. 1980)Selfcare, 2025
Ending from 2 May 2025, 12:00 PDT
Online, Los AngelesUS$400 - US$600
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Sharon Squires
Head of Department, Post-War & Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Bids (US)
JOHANNES GUSTAFSSON (B. 1980)
Selfcare, 2025
signed 'Johannes' (lower right); signed again, titled and dated 'Johannes Selfcare 2025' (on a label affixed to the reverse)
paper assemblage
10 5/8 x 10 5/8 x 2 3/8 in.
27 x 27 x 6 cm.
signed 'Johannes' (lower right); signed again, titled and dated 'Johannes Selfcare 2025' (on a label affixed to the reverse)
paper assemblage
10 5/8 x 10 5/8 x 2 3/8 in.
27 x 27 x 6 cm.
Footnotes
Provenance
Courtesy of the artist
""Selfcare." The story here is to show the importance of taking time for yourself and reflect. Both when you are feeling down but also when you are in a happy place. Taking time for yourself is so valuable.
When I heard about The Laurel Foundation and was asked if I was interested in donating an art piece, my immediate reaction was, YES OF COURSE. I want my work to encourage everyone to embrace the person they want to be. Themselves! -Johannes Gustafsson
Artist Statement: I'm a Swede, currently living in Switzerland and working with my passion, my art.
My story is a bit different. I have always been creative and designed, painted, built, etc. After university, I spent 10 years at an orthopedic clinic building orthoses for babies born with clubfoot—super creative work because there are no two legs or feet that look the same. I also had the pleasure to be invited to talk and have workshops in this treatment method in China, twice, together with my dear friends and colleagues. But I have always wanted something more, something else. I always felt different, not belonging, didn't fit in, and was bullied a lot as a child, just because I didn't fit in.
One day (as an adult), on a vacation at Laguna Beach, I lost my hat in the ocean while swimming, when I came back to the beach the waves brought a tiny black plastic figure shaped as a bear, just in front of me. I picked it up and at that second my idea of doing my "Dare to be different" style of art popped up in my head and I immediately had 50 different ideas of how I wanted my art pieces to look.
I knew at that point what had been kept in me for so long needed to get out.
To turn my passion also into a profession, I decided to go back to school and studied at the Copenhagen School of Interior Design (while I was living in Hong Kong). During that time, I met so many fantastic and creative people and also started to collaborate in local art exhibitions. I started to feel like this is what I always wanted to do, but with my own art.
Jump to a few years later and during my time in France, I organized an art exhibition in Paris for other artists, as my own art had not yet come to life and I was still exploring. Due to my partner's work, we moved to Switzerland a few years ago. With the pandemic in full swing, I found the inspiration to look myself in and fully focused on creating my art pieces. I took plenty of time creating and trying different options, different material and techniques. The feedback on my work product has been phenomenal at once. People love my creations and the stories behind them! My art was born.
It was also fantastic to experience that people would come to me with their own stories and requested me to interpret that into their own "Dare to be different" art piece. In these customized pieces, I usually hide additional details that are only visible to those familiar with the story at hand.
So, in summary my art is simple and complex at the same time:
At first glance it looks like an empty box in a frame. But look closer and a story starts emerging.
Dare to be different—be you.
Johannes Gustafsson, I dare to be different.