Henrik Johansson

A New Home

Aug. 16, 2024, 3:21 p.m.

I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.

-Pablo Picasso

My oil painting to the right could not have found a better home. Why 50-80cm Oil on wood.

For much of history, queer works of art -that is, art that explores same-sex relationships, romances, and sexual encounters—have been scorned, altered, or simply hidden away. In recent years, there have been efforts to reclaim these works and to champion art whose queerness was once dismissed or disregarded.
It’s harder to know how to reclaim something as queer when its original creator—and the audience to whom it was first shown—not only lacked the terminology to discuss sexualities that deviated from the norm but intended for the work to mean something entirely different. It’s particularly difficult when those meanings become lost on modern viewers.
The complex reality is that all of these seemingly conflicting views are valid: Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters is simultaneously a sexualized queer scene, a coded announcement of a royal pregnancy. To prioritize one reading over the others would be an injustice, a smoothing over of the very complexities that both enrich and frustrate queer histories. With my hommage painting, I ask my self if this art is ok now? Everyone can interpret things differently, the question is probably more if it can participate on the same terms now. Or does it also ends up in the basement just because some people think it shouldn't be included.

Franz Kafka

May 27, 2024, 9:18 a.m.

I was ashamed of myself when I realised life was a costume party and I attended whith my real face.

I`m in the band

May 27, 2024, 9:14 a.m.

I´m in the band, Oil on wood, 60-80cm SOLD

Gallery M1

May 27, 2024, 8:42 a.m.

This summer I have my first solo exhibition at Gallery M1 in Ystad Sweden. 10/7 -21/7 Opening June 10, 17-20 p.m.

Falsterbo konsthall

May 27, 2024, 8:29 a.m.

Sometimes my art hangs in the art gallery even if Idon`t have a exhibit at that time.

And it is always possible to buy my art through Falsterbo Konsthall in Sweden

Fabriken

May 27, 2024, 8:21 a.m.

Group exhibition this Easter at FABRIKEN i Bästekille Skåne Sweden.

Merry Chistmas

May 27, 2024, 7:29 a.m.

Happy holidayseveryone fromus to you. May the emd of this year bring us some peace and love among us all.

The world is going through a lot and we have to remember that we are only here for a fraction in time, and we are so small on this planet.

Lifeis a miracle in itself and we sould preserve it and always honor each othe´s lives.

We all have our drifferences and that`s what makes us so amazing and uniqe and interesting.

We must embrace it as much as we con.

We wish you all the best and want to tell you how thankful and grateful we are for all the support and love we get from you guys.

Fabriken

April 23, 2023, 11:47 a.m.

Fabriken

April 23, 2023, 11:45 a.m.

Fabriken

April 23, 2023, 11:43 a.m.

Fabriken

April 23, 2023, 11:42 a.m.

Galleri Final

April 23, 2023, 11:40 a.m.

Galleri Final

April 23, 2023, 11:39 a.m.

Galleri Final

April 23, 2023, 11:37 a.m.

Galleri Final

April 23, 2023, 11:37 a.m.

Galleri Final

April 23, 2023, 11:36 a.m.

Galleri Final

April 23, 2023, 11:35 a.m.

Galleri Final

April 23, 2023, 11:34 a.m.

Galleri Final

April 23, 2023, 11:32 a.m.

Galleri Final

April 23, 2023, 11:31 a.m.

Galleri Final

April 23, 2023, 11:30 a.m.

Solo show Galleri Final

April 23, 2023, 11:28 a.m.

Upcoming Event 7 April -16 April 2023

Jan. 4, 2023, 2:57 p.m.

In April I will participate in Galleri Finals big group exhibition at FABRIKEN.

FABRIKEN Bästekille, Kivik, Sweden.

7/4 - 16/4 2023

www.fabrikenbastekille.se www.gallerifinal.se

Vestito verde, Oil on canvas 120 - 100 cm

Upcoming Event 2023

Jan. 4, 2023, 2:15 p.m.

Henrik Johansson Solo Show 2023

20 originalartworks

opening: Date coming soon

at Galleri Final Kungsgatan 31, Malmö, Sweden

www.gallerifinal.se/

CULPA, Oil on canvas 200-140 CM

10 New hand signed and numbered tote bags now avaliable. Send an email for more info

Jan. 4, 2023, 1:46 p.m.

TOTE BAG

I will be in a group exhibition that starts April 15th at www.fabrikenbastekille.se Fabriken Bästekille, Kivik, Sweden. 15/4 - 24/4 2022

April 17, 2022, 5:13 p.m.

NFT

April 17, 2022, 4:26 p.m.

I have a collaboration with Artley.se where I sell NFT art. Please check out their website or sosial media for more information. www.artely.se NFT

T-shirts

Feb. 13, 2022, 2:18 p.m.

The T-shirt with the oil painting La donna con il vestito giallo, Is a FRUIT OF THE loom shirt in Heavy cotton. Available in sizes L and XL.

In waiting for my shop to be finished please email me if you whant more information, or how to order

T-shirts

Feb. 13, 2022, 2:09 p.m.

The T-shirt with the oil painting La donna con il vestito giallo, Is a FRUIT OF THE loom shirt in Heavy cotton. Available in sizes L and XL.

In waiting for my shop to be finished please email me if you whant more information, or how to order

T-shirts

Feb. 13, 2022, 2:04 p.m.

The T-shirt with the oil painting VARIANTI, Is a FRUIT OF THE loom shirt in Heavy cotton. Available in sizes L and XL.

In waiting for my shop to be finished please email me if you whant more information, or how to order

Borghese Gallery Rome

Feb. 13, 2022, 1:29 p.m.

Located in quiet and peaceful Borghese gardens, is a private collection and have the largest collection of Caravaggo`s pantings in the world.

All foto by Serena Attanasio 2022.

Borghese Gllery Rome

Feb. 13, 2022, 1:25 p.m.

Borghese Gallery Rome

Feb. 13, 2022, 1:22 p.m.

Borghese Gallery Rome

Feb. 13, 2022, 1:21 p.m.

Borghese Gallery Rome

Feb. 13, 2022, 12:49 p.m.

Borghese Gallery Rome

Feb. 13, 2022, 12:40 p.m.

Stare Off

Feb. 12, 2022, 3:13 p.m.

It looks like my painting and Picasso`s has a stare off contest. Who gets to stay or move over. .

Toe Bag

Feb. 12, 2022, 1:51 p.m.

The first tote Bag.

Soloshow at Axel Ebbe´s konsthall 6 january - 28 january 2018.

Jan. 8, 2018, 12:24 p.m.

Galleri Final, Malmö, 29th of April - 4th of June

May 1, 2017, 8:40 a.m.

HENRIK JOHANSSON – From heart to hand to canvas

Henrik Johansson calls his new exhibition “Abo imo pectore” – “With all my heart”. And, sure enough, he paints with his heart. It makes his hand that holds the brushes and his eyes that choose the colors to listen to the thoughts and obey the impulses that do not have their roots in an academy of art, but just in his heart. In the joy of painting. In the joy of being able to paint.

As it is the joy of heart that rules the art of Henrik Johansson it would be easy to believe that he is one of the so called “Sunday painters”, also known as “the Sacred Heart painters”. The nickname “Sunday painters” goes back to the naïve masters from the years around the former turn of the century, self-taught artists who only were free to paint on Sundays. Among them mainly the Parisian Costums officer Henri Rousseau (1844-1902), who also belonged to those who showed the way into surrealism, the multifaceted reality that hides behind the immediately visible world.

But even if the heart also has guided Henrik Johansson to realities that many times seem to be multifaceted och filled with mystery, it would of course be wrong to call him a naïve artist. That is naïve meaning untrained and childish. It is true that he calls himself an autodidact and by that places himself on the same level as the naïve painters, but he has not been left totally to himself. As a child Henrik Johansson belonged to those kids who always drawn, sketched and painted. When he later should start high school, the choice was easy: it became the craft line with art as the first choice. There he met the artist Thomas Holm, a figurative expressionist with a good eye to classic art. Holm quickly realized the young student’s ability of to achieve and reproduce a motif with an apparently intuitive look for anatomical abbreviations, perspective shifts and nuanced dialogs between light and shadow. He gave his adept a good advice: Study Caravaggio! All that Henrik Johansson was aiming for, this Roman baroque artist had driven to perfection, only 400 years earlier.

And Henrik Johansson followed his advice. Studied Michelangelo da Caravaggio (1571-1610) whose dramatic life and equally dramatic paintings created uproar already in his own time. With him disappeared the Renaissance’s refinement and love for exquisite details. Caravaggio, a homosexual rowdy and fighter with a very short fuse, told in sweeping, yet blood-dripping brush-strokes about violence. About beheadings and crucifixions. With a dramatic headlight light, called tenebroso, he focused the essentials in each work and put the remains in half-light and shadows. He painted flirty androgynous angels. Boys from the streets were used as models for the young Bacchus. Dirty foot soles were placed literally before the eyes of officiating priests when they were exposed on altar paintings. In prolongation Henrik Johansson also adopted two of Caravaggio’s later, contemporary, admirers: the Norwegian Odd Nerdrum and the Dane Michael Kvium, who both have a preference for realistically painted absurdities with domicile in the more obscure outlaying lands of the baroque.

When Henrik Johansson last exhibited at Galleri Final in the beginning of 2014, masterly performed replicas of paintings by Caravaggio were used as backgrounds for different, most often surrealistic, events. In the new exhibition the Italian master only plays a minor role. Fragments from some of his most famous paintings can be seen, but most often as an underlying dimension. As a sort of reference to a zero where all started, in any case for Henrik Johansson. In layer by layer where faces, bodies, parts of bodies, parts of clothes partly overlaps each other, Henrik Johansson plays with our fantasy and our perception. Also here it deals about fragments that are glued together to collage with use of illusory painted pieces of yellow masking tape. He paints a story. An incoherent story and we have to fill in the words ourselves. He gives us a clue, the word HOPE. It reappears as a mantra in quite a lot of works. But hope of what? The answer is with the viewer.

It is like this Henrik Johansson works. No answers are given in beforehand. The paintings are omitted for the viewer’s mindsets, which turns them into barometers. They can swing between hope and despair, between tangible reality and untouchable dreams. Not even the titles of the paintings are to any help. Most often they have no names at all and the fantasy wanders helpless between interpretations that disappear before they were transformed into words. In other paintings Latin quotes confuse. “Dum vivimus, vivamus” – “While we live, let us live”. Let us live with different identities in an all-time changing life where the only move that counts is the move of the body. Or…? And the paint “Persona non grata” – a person not desired. To whom does it refer? To the labourer who in a painting by Caravaggio is helping to rise the cross of St. Peter? To the well-dressed man with a whipped-away face? To the tattooed girl whose body-language is so rejective? The question marks accumulate. As already mentioned, the art of Henrik Johansson leaves no answers, in return it trigs the curiosity.

Britte Montigny

Solo show

May 1, 2017, 8:39 a.m.

Solo show

May 1, 2017, 7:24 a.m.

Solo show

May 1, 2017, 7:21 a.m.

Solo show

May 1, 2017, 7:19 a.m.

Solo show

May 1, 2017, 7:17 a.m.

Solo show

May 1, 2017, 7:15 a.m.

Interwiev

March 1, 2017, 4:39 p.m.

Q: You’re exhibiting with Gallery Final in Malmö. Tell us a bit about the work you’ll be showing?

I'll be showing a couple of portraits and still-lifes that continue to explore my general confusions in my life and portraying my emotions.

Q: Tell us about your artistic path, from childhood to the present day?

I started drawing early on, began painting in oils in High School and never stopped. My work has always served as a refuge to reflect on difficult emotions and to get some peace.

Q: What makes a good day in the studio?

A good day in the studio is one when I don't want to leave.

Q: Can you tell us about the titles you give your works? How important is it to set the tone this way?

Yeah. I am kind of impulsive. I also like the absurd sensibility. I make them up when I have finished a painting, and often it feels so right to the panting. But sometimes I just give them a number, a titel would be to much.

Q: Do you only paint women? Why are you interested in posing?

I do paint men but somehow my male-centric paintings are less interesting

Q: Do you have a favourite work, and, if so, why?

You mean my paintings? I don't really have one, it is often the latast one I have on the erisal. Or the one i haven't painted yet.

Q: Can you tell us a little about the materials you use, and why?

Oil paint on different supports depending on scale: Panel is a nice new support I've been experimenting with for smaller works. I use linen and syntet with oil on ground i do myself.

Q: In an age of Acrylic paint why do you use oil paints?

It's more beautiful don't you think? I love the tradition and craft of oil painting. The medium demands respect, dedication and patience.

Q: What do you listen to when painting?

Right now I'm deep into different podcasts and documentaries, I also listen to music of course, music can often influence me in different ways and change my painting a bit.

Q: Favorite living and deceased artist?

There are so many but John Currin and Caravaggio of course. And Swedish artist Ola Billgren he is also one of my absolute favourite all time artist.

Q: You've been working as an artist for many years. What advice would you give to younger artists just starting out?

Well, I've only been doing this kind of painting professionally for a few years so i don't think I've gone far enough to have any retrospection of value. I've made a lot of mistakes, too. I suppose the old clichés are all proving true, follow your bliss, to thine own self be true, work hard, and perhaps the most important, be wary of other's advice. Keep at it. Painting is not like riding a bicycle. Practice your art!

Q: Your work expresses an interesting juxtaposition between conventional composition and surrealist subjects. How and when did you hit on this combination?

Seemed natural to me to assimilate all things visual into my work; I want to be able to explore everything visual in the context of Old Masters' dynamic colour-mixing / luminosity principle. In addition to flora and fauna there is also now man-made and the abstract to draw from. A contemporary chimera is a complex thing.

Q: What has been the highlight of your career and why?

Finding a gallerist who let me be myself and supporting that. But the real peak will come soon. But I can't tell you about it right now.

Q: What's next for Henrik johansson?

Solo show coming up at Gallery Final Malmö the 26th of April 2017.

To Stay up to date on new work from Henrik johansson,

instagram: @henrikfinearts www.henrikjohansson.org

Interview by Robert Dent.