Born in South Africa and now based in Las Vegas, artist Johnathan Schultz has steadily built an international reputation for his singular fusion of fine art, conceptual practice, and luxury craftsmanship. In 2022, he expanded his creative presence by opening a gallery in Miami, extending the global reach of his vision. Schultz’s work resists easy categorisation: it is simultaneously rooted in South African histories of struggle and liberation, and outward-looking, concerned with universal questions of resilience, hope, and the marks left by history on the human condition.
Schultz’s practice is profoundly shaped by his cultural heritage and by the enduring influence of Nelson Mandela. Mandela’s legacy of resistance, resilience, and human dignity reverberates throughout Schultz’s oeuvre. This connection is not symbolic alone; the artist has worked directly with salvaged metal from Robben Island, the site of Mandela’s imprisonment, embedding fragments of South Africa’s most charged history into his creative process. In doing so, Schultz moves beyond representation into a realm where materiality itself speaks: the surfaces of his works carry the weight of endurance, oppression, and transformation.
At the philosophical heart of Schultz’s practice lies his manifesto, The Gilded Truth: Manifesto of Unyielding Defiance. This declaration articulates his mission to confront social and political constructs through art while simultaneously resisting aesthetic convention. His works are not simply decorative or symbolic; they are sites of resistance that challenge audiences to question how value, identity, and power are constructed.
This critical engagement was brought into sharp focus in 2025 when Schultz presented his first major solo exhibition in South Africa—titled Lasting Impressions: Tracing Identity & Resilience, the exhibition opened in September at Cape Town’s Homecoming Centre, a fitting venue for a homecoming both personal and artistic. The show explored the textures of South Africa’s landscapes, the weight of its histories, and the resilience of its people. Schultz invited audiences to look beneath the surface, to confront not only beauty but also the scars of struggle, and to consider how history shapes identity in the present.
Gold, a recurring motif in Schultz’s practice, plays a crucial role in this body of work. Historically linked with wealth and power, gold in Schultz’s hands becomes a paradoxical material: it illuminates both the inequalities of our world and the small, overlooked elements of life that technology and modernity often obscure. His fingerprint series exemplifies this approach. By reinterpreting Nelson Mandela’s fingerprints from his arrest warrant, Schultz transforms intimate forensic details into monumental symbols of strength and individuality. The works meditate on permanence, while also reminding viewers of the fragility of human freedom under oppressive systems. Here, Schultz interrogates the duality of symbols, exploring how they can simultaneously oppress and liberate.
The tension between black and gold has become a signature of Schultz’s palette. Following his 2021 Mandela fingerprint series, he continued to use this visual language to probe the ongoing struggles against oppression and inequality. In his 2025 series depicting barbed-wire fences, which is haunting yet visually luminous, Schultz sets foreboding structures against golden trees beyond the barrier. Works such as “Defined by the Fence” and “Old Father of Fathers Alone” dramatise the painful separation of freedom from captivity, while hinting at hope for a future beyond division. These images resonate with South Africa’s history of apartheid while also speaking to global struggles for equality.
A year earlier, Schultz turned to the symbol of the poppy, painting isolated flowers on gleaming gold backgrounds. Long associated with memory, war, and the sacrifices of freedom fighters, the poppy in Schultz’s hands becomes a metaphor for resilience: a lone figure standing proudly against the tides of injustice. Like his fences, these works strike a balance between defiance and hope, darkness and light, decay and renewal.
Beyond his engagement with history, Schultz’s work also speaks to contemporary conditions. Motifs such as empty swings and fractured landscapes address the social shifts and dislocations of modern life, inviting audiences to reflect on absence, change, and the systems — technological, political, and environmental — that shape our shared futures. As a multidisciplinary artist, Schultz blends traditional craft with digital innovation, producing immersive experiences that collapse the boundaries between material and media.
In October 2025, Schultz presents this inquiry in London through his participation in Origins II, a group exhibition at Miart Gallery. For this occasion, he presents a new series of gilded poppy compositions on 23k gold leaf backgrounds. Here, the poppy’s fragility is heightened by its shimmering ground, positioning the flower as both an emblem of mortality and a beacon of endurance. These works investigate the coexistence of growth and decay, reminding us that beauty and vulnerability are intertwined.
Schultz’s work insists on the power of art to hold contradictions in tension. He situates resilience alongside fragility, hope alongside struggle, and beauty alongside the scars of history. His practice is one of transformation–of materials, symbols and collective memory. In fusing the languages of fine art, craft, and philosophy, Schultz offers more than a visual spectacle: he provides a way of thinking about how we confront inequality, preserve memory, and imagine more hopeful futures.
Ultimately, Schultz’s art is not about gold as a luxury, but about what glimmers beneath it: the truths of human resilience, the persistence of identity, and the possibility of defiance becoming liberation. His journey from South Africa to the global stage is a testament to these themes in itself. Whether through Mandela’s fingerprints, solitary poppies, or fences that threaten but cannot contain the golden trees beyond, Schultz’s art asks us to look, to remember, and to hope.
Words: Lee Sharrock Photos Courtesy The Artist
Miart Gallery London i ORIGINS II From 3 OCTOBER 2025 – 31-32 St James’s St, Mayfair, London SW1A 1HD