Bandleader, art teacher and artist Patrick Roberts said, “Glaucoma is living with me. I am not living with glaucoma," refusing to allow the eye disease to have power over him.
He has documented what living with the disease for the past 13 years has been like in his latest exhibition, The Windows – a Conversation with Glaucoma.
It runs from December 2-4 the Old Fire Brigade Station, corner Hart and Abercromby Streets, Port of Spain, with speeches on the opening evening from experts like ophthalmologist Dr Debra Bartholomew. There will also be a buyers’ preview on that evening from 1-4 pm.
Living with the disease has resulted in his losing depth perception.
“When I walk I have to be very careful where I put my feet, because everything just looks flat,” he explained.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology defines depth perception as the ability to see things in three dimensions (including length, width and depth) and to judge how far away an object is.
Bartholomew, Roberts’s ophthalmologist, is “confused and amazed” he can still paint. Roberts has lost sight in his right eye and has limited sight in his left.
Painting, now, for him, is a more a walk of faith rather than one of sight. That is why one of 24 paintings being exhibited is called Walking by Faith.
[caption id="attachment_1048044" align="alignnone" width="852"] WALKING BY FAITH: A major part of artist Patrick Roberts' process ow is painting by faith rather than sight. The artist has glaucoma and lost sight in one eye and has limited sight in the other. The body of work collected under the title The Windows - A conversation with Glaucoma, details what it is like having the eye disease "live with him."[/caption]
Roberts said, “One sees with the brain and not the physical eye, I have been told, and that is true in many ways. However, we have learnt to first see with the eyes, and loss of that faculty is frightening, especially for me, a visual artist.
“Now that I am relearning, retooling, retraining and really seeing through the window of the window, every sunrise, sunset and everything in between is even more breathtaking.”
The memory of what it was like to have first met someone, to see something for the first time or to touch it is now how he paints.
“When you go to paint, the first thing is an attraction. Something would have attracted you to this site, spot, house, or person," he said.
Roberts said one of the things he tries to do is to remember that first attraction and bring it to his canvas.
“When you start losing one faculty, you gain others. So my feet, now, are so much more sensitive to where I walk,” Roberts said.
He added he looks more now than he even looked before.
“Shadows and thing are very interesting to me now. So a lot of the work treats with shadow and shade and light and dark.”
For this exhibition he began by darkening paper, using different colours. He uses soft artist pastels and those are placed on a dark acrylic wash on Arches water-colour paper and windows are the subjects of all 25 paintings.
He would
