During Art Rotterdam GoMulan Gallery will show the work of Jonat Deelstra and Joran van Soest in booth 51.
Jonat Deelstra (1991) will show his new series of oil paintings 'Mysterious Vice'. In this series he shows his love for the night. Jonat: 'Last year I made a strange discovery with my camera trap. My camera had filmed a man walking alone naked at four degrees Celsius across the Veluwe. This situation inspired me for my new series of paintings. Camera traps show situations that are normally hidden from the eye. Normally it is used to see rare animals. But now it showed surprising human behavior.'
Deelstra has been living and working in Amsterdam for over ten years now. In 2018, Jonat earned his Bachelor's degree in Illustration from HKU. Since then he has worked mainly as a painter, but he also likes to reach for new materials. Thus, he builds installations, makes drawings, woodcuts, ceramic work and animations. The paintings of Jonat Deelstra have magical realistic features and are painted with toxic colors. Because of this, his works are alienating as if something ominous is about to happen. Jonat finds his inspiration in other cultures and religions: ''I need the supernatural. I have a need to know the mystery of human existence.'' He can be seen in several private and corporate collections.
Joran van Soest (1994) is also showing new work at Art Rotterdam.
'Real communication starts with admitting that you never fully understand each other,' says van Soest. In his art the relationship between him and his surroundings is central. He explores this through a concept he calls the 'intersubjective space'.
Van Soest is also fascinated by the selective capacity of memories. For example, he incorporates his own childhood photographs into his work. These are examples of moments where his parents cherish a precious memory that van Soest cannot always remember.
In his explorations along the boundaries of perception he is aware that the contact with the public must not be lost. That is why his work includes recognizable themes such as campfires, teepees, radio towers and zeppelins, in addition to human figures and human desire. In his words, "Looking through the eyes of another is impossible, but you have to try.
Joran van Soest graduated from the art academy AKV St. Joost in Den Bosch in 2018 and was featured with his own retrospective at the Noordbrabants Museum in 2020. He also won the SBK-Otto Hetterscheid Prize and was a nominee for the Piketkunst Prize in 2019. In 2022, he was nominated for the AG Art Prize and exhibited at Museum Veere.