Are We There Yet? The Locus Amoenus
Oil on Canvas
2026

Are We There Yet? The Locus Amoenus marks a decisive shift in Jônatas’ practice, where landscape becomes a terrain of memory and fracture. In oil, he abandons illusion for a restrained palette and an abrasive, subtractive process that renders erosion both method and metaphor for displacement. The figure is withheld, intensifying a sense of dislocation and resisting narrative closure. In response, the clay sculptures emerge as ruptured, forceful, and eroded counterparts—outsider forms that seem to wrestle for belonging within the painted fields. Translating abrasion into mass, they stage a tension between surface and form that reflects the artist’s diasporic experience of adaptation and alienation.

The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Numbers IX & X, oil on canvas, 130 x 260 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2026

The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Embodiment II,
Painted Clay Sculpture, 40 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2026

Detail: The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Numbers VII, oil on canvas, 50 X 30 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2025

The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Embodiment III
Painted Clay Sculpture, 40 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2026

​The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Number III, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2025

The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Embodiment I
Painted Clay Sculpture, 40 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2026

The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Number IX, oil on canvas, 130 x 100 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2026

The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Number IV, oil on canvas, 20 X 40 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2025

Detail: The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Numbers IX & X, oil on canvas, 130 x 260 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2025

The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Numbers IX & X, oil on Canvas, 30 x 30 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2025

The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Number X, oil on canvas, 130 x 100 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2026

The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Number V, oil on canvas, 30 x 50 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2026

The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Number II, oil on canvas, 20 x 40 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2025

The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Number VIII, oil on canvas, 50 x 30 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2026

​Detail: The Locus Amoenus: Are We There Yet?
Number I, oil on canvas, 20 x 40 cm
​Jônatas, Paris, 2025