Rob Gonsalves

“I believe that there is real magic in life. Sometimes the experience of it can be dependent on one’s point of view. I have come to see the making of art as the search for that point of view where the magic and wonder of life appears not so much as an illusion, but as an essential truth that often gets obscured.”
Magic Realism is a style of painting where reality is mixed with magic. Rob Gonsalves’ work is categorized as Magic Realism. More specifically, his paintings have an autobiographical, symbolic narrative that invites the viewer into his beautiful mind where alternative realities exist at the same time. His work is a visual, human experience of quantum theory’s Entangled Spaces and Time.
Rob Gonsalves made paintings that spoke to the joyful and wonderous imagination of children and to us adults who can still find that inner child willing to swing so high that our shoes touch the sky.
Born in Toronto, Rob Gonsalves graduated from the Architecture program at Ryerson University and worked in the field for a few years before embarking on internationally acclaimed painting career.
His architectural studies gave him the skill sets to manipulate points of view, perspective and scale in 2-D and enabled him to bend and play with reality. His influences include Magritte, Remedios Varo, Kurerlek and the ProgRock album covers of his teens.
Rob Gonsalves drew from his own personal narrative. He was inspired by Toronto and New York architecture, the night sky and the rugged, Eastern Ontario landscape of rock, trees and lakes where he eventually settled in 2001.
Gonsalves suffered from mental illness and ended his life on June 14, 2017. His official Facebook page stated in part "Rob Gonsalves battled the dark but succumbed June 14th." He was survived by his wife and extended family.
Fellow artist and widow, Lise Carruthers organized an effort to preserve his legacy in 2018. In 2019, a 4-foot-high black granite plinth was installed on his gravesite at the Necropolis Cemetery in Toronto Canada. Each side of the pedestal featured a different porcelain reproduction of a Gonsalves paintings. Future plans are for a series of art exhibitions featuring Gonsalves original paintings.
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Music: Eraldo Bernocchi, Harold Budd, Robin Guthrie "South of Heaven"