The development of everyday life
Jonat Deelstra, Screw It (2024), oil paint on canvas, 40 x 30 cm.
Junkspace
Jonat's work typically centers on natural environments and human settlement. In this 2025 series, the focus shifts to cityscapes and urban areas. Some works show humans nurturing and building: small construction workers going about their days, seemingly in command of the scene. Others show no humans at all. Their haunting emptiness reveals Jonat's love for deserted spaces.
Sito Rosendaal, curator of Museum MORE (Museum of Magic Realist Painting), calls this Junkspace, borrowing the term from architect Rem Koolhaas. Koolhaas describes Junkspace as the residue left behind when modernization runs unchecked: the leftover clutter of building frenzy and profit-driven development. It has no fixed form, no clear beginning or end, and lacks any real structure. It is the product of a modern craving for artificial comfort: air conditioning, escalators, and manufactured environments that simulate a sense of place without ever truly creating one.
Several of Jonat's works exploring this theme will feature in the museum's upcoming exhibition, which asks a provocative question: is it possible to love architectural non-spaces? Gas stations, airports, highway overpasses: places predominantly stripped of character, and therefore hard to love.
Yet Jonat's paintings do exactly that. They find and reveal a love for city life and the urban landscape, even within its most characterless corners.
Jonat Deelstra, The Almighty Ambivalence (2024), oil paint on canvas, 90 x 65 cm.
Jonat Deelstra, Beyond authority, (2024), oil paint on canvas, 170 x 120 cm.
Jonat Deelstra, Feel Much Better Now (2024), oil paint on canvas, 50 x 40 cm. Sold.
Jonat Deelstra, Bridging the Gap (2024), oil paint on canvas, 80 x 40 cm.
Jonat Deelstra, The Pros and Cons of Fossil Fuel (2024), oil paint on canvas, 40 x 50 cm. Sold.
Jonat Deelstra, A Smalll Portion of the Sun (2024), oil paint on canvas, 40 x 30 cm. Sold.
Jonat Deelstra, Safety Guarantee (Challenged), (2024), oil paint on canvas, 50 x 40 cm. Sold.
Jonat Deelstra, The Pulse of Selection (2024), oil paint on canvas, 40 x 50 cm.
Jonat Deelstra, Orange Partition (2024), oil paint on canvas, 110 x 80 cm.
Jonat Deelstra, Facelift, (2024), oil paint on canvas, 40 x 30 cm.