YouTube Video

"Thank you Mark Wilby of Climax Films for capturing an idea of what it feels like painting Walker Bay, and Grootbos Private Nature Reserve for providing the location and footage."

Jonker works and exhibits prolifically. He exhibits throughout South Africa in galleries and at festivals such as the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival and he Grahamstown National Arts Festival. Since embarking on a full time art career in 2004 he has established a cohesive body of oil paintings in various genres, mainly plein air landscape painting, and figurative bronze sculpture which was his training.

Curriculum Vitae

Born in 1971, Niel Jonker has been a full-time artist since 2005, and is a trained sculptor who paints prolifically en plein-air, and facilitates artisanal breadmaking training.

"Observing Niël Jonker´s work is engaging with art which is made by a person who can
see, and a painter who can paint."
[Carin Goodwin: February 2008]

To engage with art is to enter into a cycle of energy and light which comes from and returns to the creative universe. We can see light which comes from the universe illuminating the ever changing landscapes within which we live. This same light can be seen in the objects of our everyday experience. And it is this same light, this creative energy which enters the soul of the artist to be moulded and sculpted into various art forms. A work of art which holds this light becomes a symbol of our experience of the universe. It is through the viewer engaging with art that this energy is released back to the universe to complete the creative cycle. Whether as artist or viewer, we can encounter here one of the greatest experiences of being human - an intimate connectedness to the creative universe.

The artist Neil Jonker is surrounded in his everyday life by the abundant light and creativity of the rural landscape. The small hamlet of Baardskeerdersbos where he lives, lies in the Overberg area of the Western Cape, South Africa. It lies amongst rolling hills and mountains which stretch beneath open skies to the coast-line of Walker Bay. There is a whole lot in the air which smacks of the creative marriage of nature and human endeavour as can be experienced in Provence or Tuscany - from the extraordinary natural light playing across the landscape, to the celebration of country values in the communal life of a rural village. Here ideas are given time and warmth to rise like the yeast in a good farm bread or plaasbrood. This bread, baked also by Jonker himself, is best shared warm and steaming with a good glass of wine and robust company, sitting on a wide voor-stoep or verandah taking in the view and the country air. Even as terroir enters the soul of a good bottle of wine, so too in the soul of the artist. Within the cycle of creativity, to engage with Jonker's art is to experience something of this sensual country lifestyle (without having to brave the veld-fires and muddy roads and mosquitoes for yourself!).

Growing up in ostrich-farming community of Oudtshoorn, Niel Jonker is the son of an ostrich farmer and school teacher. From his youth, he has always shied away from the attention provoked by his talent, seeking solace in the endless wonders contained in nature.