Character of the month- Rob Gonsalves

This month we celebrate Rob Gonsalves (1959–2017), the Toronto-born Canadian painter whose work makes the ordinary feel full of possibility. Look closely at one of his paintings and you’ll see a quiet transformation: a stone bridge slowly becomes a fleet of sailing ships, stairs melt into a waterfall, or a city skyline dissolves into trees and stars. This style is called magic realism — realistic scenes gently infused with wonder and optical illusion. Born in Toronto, Gonsalves grew up drawing from his imagination. As a teenager he was inspired by the fantastical album covers of progressive rock bands. He later studied architecture at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) and spent a year at OCAD. Those years taught him how to control perspective, scale, and the way the eye moves through a picture — skills that became the backbone of his art. After working briefly as an architect (and painting murals and theatre sets), a strong response at the 1990 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition encouraged him to paint full-time. His influences included M.C. Escher’s impossible perspectives, René Magritte’s poetic surprises, and the dreamlike worlds of Salvador Dalí and Yves Tanguy. Unlike pure surrealism, Gonsalves carefully planned every detail so the shift from one reality to another feels natural and believable. Viewers often discover something new each time they look. He became widely known through his “Imagine a…” picture books — Imagine a Night, Imagine a Day (which won the 2005 Governor General’s Award for children’s illustration), Imagine a Place, and Imagine a World. These books invite children and adults alike to see the world with fresh eyes. Gonsalves shows young artists how studying the real world — buildings, light, trees, water — can give you the tools to invent new ones. His work reminds us that imagination isn’t about escaping reality; it’s about looking more carefully and asking, “What if this turned into something else?” Try this: Draw something ordinary from your neighborhood or classroom. Then choose one part and slowly transform it into something unexpected. What happens when a sidewalk becomes a river, or a bookshelf turns into a forest? His official site (robgonsalves.live), kept by his family, continues to share his work and legacy. The paintings still speak to the part of us that believes a swing can reach the sky — or that a city street might quietly become a forest.