Jonat Deelstra’s paintings and installations are both narrative and alienating. In his work, he explores how people interact with their environment and how they attempt to bend it to their will. He often depicts the tragicomic situations into which people manoeuvre themselves. The human urge for control and the belief in human agency, alongside themes such as death, ritual, ‘construction’ and geo-engineering, recur regularly in his work. There is often a tension in his practice between serious subject matter and a light, sometimes seductive form; the works refer to reality, yet also possess a dreamlike and slightly unsettling quality.

Deelstra feels like he’s in the eye of the storm: “Just like the generations before us, ours has a revolutionary character. We feel that we are at a crossroads in history. This feels like a big theater stage – we play our part in several global stories. Examples are the upcoming changes due to artificial intelligence, the nuclear threat, the rise of popular ultra-right and left-wing politicians, the climate crisis, etc. These stories are usually built around protagonists and antagonists. As long as I can tell myself that I'm on the right side and the other is the bad guy, the world is pretty comprehensible. I try to show these stories in a new light and mix up these roles. I enrich myself by stepping out of the binary view of good and bad.” Deelstra works with themes such as migration, religion, identity, climate change, and death.