Rob Gonsalves
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Rob Gonsalves is a Canadian painter of magic realism Both his parents were Romanian Gypsies who travelled from place to place in Romania. After 15 years they summoned up the money to travel to Canada. Then he was born in Toronto,Ontario in 1959. He won the 2005 Governor General's Award in the Children's Literature - Illustration category for Imagine a Day. He is also an accomplished guitarist.
During his childhood, Gonsalves developed an interest in drawing from imagination using various media. By age twelve, his awareness of architecture grew as he leaned perspective techniques and began to do his first paintings and renderings of imagined buildings.
After an introduction to artists Dalí and Tanguy, Gonsalves began his first surrealist paintings. The "Magic Realism" approach of Magritte along with the precise perspective illusions of Escher came to be influences in his future work.
In his post college years, Gonsalves worked full time as an architect, also painting trompe-l'œil murals and theatre sets. After an enthusiastic response in 1990 at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, Gonsalves devoted himself to painting full time.
Although Gonsalves' work is often categorized as surrealistic, it differs due to the fact that the images are deliberately planned and result from conscious thought. Ideas are largely generated by the external world and involve recognizable human activities, using carefully planned illusionist devices. Gonsalves injects a sense of magic into realistic scenes. As a result, the term "Magic Realism" describes his work accurately. His work is an attempt to represent human beings desire to believe the impossible.
Numerous individuals around the world, corporations, embassies, and a United States Senator collect Gonsalves' original work, and limited edition prints. Rob Gonsalves has exhibited at Art Expo New York and Los Angeles, Decor Atlanta and Las Vegas, Fine Art Forum, as well as one-man shows at Discovery Galleries, Ltd., Hudson River Art Gallery, and Kaleidoscope Gallery.
In June 2003, Simon & Schuster introduced North America and Canada to Imagine a Night, Gonsalves' first hardcover book featuring sixteen paintings. Due to the success of Imagine a Night, Simon & Schuster released a second book, Imagine a Day, in 2004. Imagine a Place was released in 2008.
He is currently also focusing on producing engaging works for the yet-to-be-released book, 'Basic Reading For Dummies'.
Gonsalves has now 64 paintings and is working on more.
