ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
After graduating from Central St. Martin’s London, Johan Andersson became the youngest ever artist to be shortlisted for the BP Portrait Award and was named in The Independent’s Top 20 Artists. His work has been displayed at the National Portrait Gallery, The V&A Museum, The Saatchi Gallery and he has exhibited work alongside artists including Anish Kapoor, Damien Hirst, Francis Bacon, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin Lucien Freud, Sir Peter Blake and Howard Hodgkin
He has exhibited and sold on the International Art Market including art fairs in Basel & Miami, Cutlog in Paris, as well at numerous other exhibitions in New York & London. In 2010 Andersson was selected by Sky Arts as the ‘one to watch’ young British Contemporary Artist to feature on a 6 week Documentary called ‘Art of Survival’ broadcasted 2011.
Collectors of interest include; Film Director George Lucas, Flickr and Slack founder Stewart Butterfield, Casey Cowell, founder of the modem, Academy Award Winner Per Hallberg and Director of Chelsea FC Eugene Tenenbaum. Andersson was recently selected as one of the Top 100 Most Influential Creatives by TimeOut magazine. He was recently featured as one to watch on The Guardian in the article 'Art imitating life; how this year's Armory show got political'
Johan painted the first official portrait of human rights activist Mariam Ibrahim. In 2015. She was sentenced to death for Apostasy and given 100 lashes for marrying a Christian man. She was later rescued as a result of an international outcry that included the voices of such luminaries as Angelina Jolie, President Obama, Clinton, Prime Minister David Cameron and Pope Francis.
Johan has donated paintings to auction for critical causes including Victims of torture, Changing Faces (facial disfigurement), Breakthrough Breast cancer and recently Hope Heals, painting donating money towards a disabled youth camp in California. In 2019/20 donated locally two pieces for Safe Place for Youth (Youth homelessness) and a show at Google, Venice Family clinics, providing health care for disadvantaged families. He also donated two pieces to raise money for The View magazine, run by female inmates, to get women out of prison during the covid19 spread. He also used his art to help raise money for Monefiore hosptial New York during the pandemic.
A Voice for the voiceless
"Andersson’s work is saturated with realities to remind us of an unreal world and situations that we are not aware of everyday. His faith, his attitude and the impotence of an unfair place create different, provocative and bold work." Arte al Limite
"Portrait flashes of old master painters came flooding into my consciousness, from Rembrandt to Freud to Peter Howson. I was overcome by the humanity emanating from the canvas, more human than human, the presence of sentience" Laurence Fuller, son of British art critic Peter Fuller
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Jason Flom, Atlantic and Virgin records & Banksy 7 figure sale collector
Farhad Massoudi, Tubi TV founder
Eugine Tenenbaum, Chelsea Football club director
George Lucas, Lucas Museum (Starwars founder)
Casey Cowell (USA Robotics)
Stewart Butterfield, Flickr and Slack founder
Per Hallberg (Academy award winning sound editor)
Tim Deggett (Olympic gymnast gold medalist)
MUSEUMS AND INSTITUTIONS
Englefield House & Highclere Castle 2013 ‘Breaking Traditions of Centuries’
Saatchi Gallery 2013 and 2017
National Portrait Gallery 2007
Victoria and Albert Museum 2011
Royal West Bristol Museum 2013
Google, Venice CA 2019
ARTIST STATEMENT
ANDERSSON seek representation and visibility to those who do not conform within the popular social consciousness of culture. (attributes so often propagated by onscreen and printed hegemony). In recognizing the capacity of the global media (in line with public receptiveness) to distort ontological perceptions, the paintings stand
both in defiance and pride, celebrating diversity in the knowledge that we are all uniquely made. Whether expressed through paintings confronting issues of body image, ethnic or racial prejudice, religious discrimination or gender stereotypes; the protagonist is often someone who might easily be overlooked.
For Andersson the purpose is not to condemn modern culture, rather to help people discover who they are within it. The expression and soul of the paintings encourages intimacy, whilst challenging continually emerging advertising milieus. In capturing both actuality and the elusive ethereal, the fusion of subtle smears of color and blurred mark making has the effect of ordinary details appearing extraordinary.
The subjects retain both an ephemeral and intense presence, provoking cognitive dissonance. In each of Andersson’s paintings there is an invitation for the viewer to explore their own preconceptions within themselves to confront either a false sense of inadequacy or distorted identity in a manner that is uniquely uncompromising.