For artist Robert Cerins, a period of not seeing led to a profound understanding and new way of believing in the power of the visual arts and the interrelationship between light and sound—between the colours on his canvases and the notes plucked from his bass guitar.
In 2008 he was rendered totally blind for 40 days when the retinas of both his eyes detached. “Not having my sight for 40 days really allowed me to go deeper into my purpose and what I’m here for,” he said. “What I decided after that whole experience, after I got my sight back, was to bring in sound and colour together.”
It’s not easy for him to describe that convergence in a brief interview, but Cerins believes that, like musical notes, there is a key for every colour. “The colour red is C, orange is D, the key of E is yellow, the heart is F (green), all the way up the chakras.”—G is blue, A is purple, and B is pink. Cerins can explain which part of the body—which chakra—each colour is in tune with.
“That was just a gateway for me for understanding why I’m painting in particular colours. Each painting is a composition of multiple colours, so it has all of these different notes in it.” And, like musical notes, colours in a palette can be combined into chords. So there’s a physical and spiritual connection between his visual art and the music he plays during outdoor jam sessions on the lawn of his Fuller Lake residence.
Cerins’ ’40-year retrospective’ will be featured at the Rainforest Arts gallery from July 30 to September 28. He will conduct two demos during the run: on August 8, he will demonstrate a technique called Gelli Plate Printing; on September 7, how he makes earrings.
Earrings are mini works of art as far as Cerins is concerned. “I get just as much of an endorphin rush off completing a pair of earrings as I do completing a big painting,” he said. Except with earrings, he gets his creative highs just about every day instead of on the longer cycle of wall art. “I realized that to really be successful, I had to make lots and lots of earrings because people’s tastes are different.”
Rainforest Arts is located at 9781 Willow Street. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. You can contact the gallery at info@rainforestarts.ca or 250-246-4861. Find out more at RainforestArts.ca.
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