Chelsea Gustafsson

I like to play with objects and textures that don’t necessarily sit well together naturally. Through the process of constructing items into a sculptural form and twisting or balancing them to find their sweet spot for a composition and watching how the light falls and reflects across them, they begin to gel as a single form and a beauty emerges. It’s this tension of what’s seemingly pleasing yet has an underlying awkwardness that I find a kind of peacefulness in. Time in my studio creating is my coping mechanism for contemplating the complications our world is faced with. The works are a response to an expectation of finding an awkwardly acceptable point of existence in a world that we’re told is changing whilst being presented with both frightening facts and stories of hope and solutions.
Artist Statement - Chelsea Gustafsson

'The beige textures of the cardboard boxes, all battered, sellotaped, and crumpled at the edges, dominate the picture plane. Their form is humble and ubiquitous, yet also suggestive of consumption, waste, and containment. When seen as repositories of memory and knowledge, they begin to symbolise what has been lost through decades of relentless consumerism. They become an archive of extinction events, ready to be stored away.'
Excerpt from ‘Souvenirs’ catalogue essay, by Phe Luxford 2024

'For 'Fish Out of Water', the artist has focused her attention on the ocean’s most indomitable apex predator - the shark - to once again lay bare the complicated relationship between us humans and our broader environment. Rather than preach to the viewer about our collective destruction of our planet and the decimation of animal populations, however, Gustafsson prefers to explore our fear, fetishism and reverence for these majestic animals with the hope that the viewer will draw their own conclusions.'
Excerpt from catalogue essay by Kate McAuley 2022