A Stroke of Pluck

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Sheri Bakes, “Somatic Wind,” 2018

oil on canvas, 54” x 60”

Sheri Bakes makes paintings that resemble bursts of pollen, constellations of stars or rain splashing on a window. They are pretty, and often draw comments about pointillism, an offshoot of Impressionism that emerged when Georges Seurat and Paul Signac began experimenting with coloured dots in the 1880s. But Bakes, who lives near Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, came to the technique not from an interest in colour mixing, but after a stroke at age 29 left her without internal vision.

What does that mean? Bakes can give plenty of examples. When the refrigerator or cupboard door is closed she has no idea what’s inside: She leaves everyday objects sitting out so she can find them. Without an internal visual map, she gets lost when she tries to drive somewhere new. She can’t call to mind the faces of people she knows – even family members. And she can’t create the mental images that would allow her to fantasize.

“My eyes are fine,” she says. “But I’m blind inside.” It’s an unusual condition sometimes called aphantasia. I tell Bakes it’s hard to imagine living like that. She laughs. “It’s because you have an imagination and I don’t,” she says. “You can’t imagine not having an imagination.”

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Sheri Bakes, “Vulnerability of Trust,” 2018

oil on canvas, 42” x 48”

You’d think the inability to visualize imagery would be the death knell for an artist’s career. But Bakes has persevered. Now in her 40s, she is represented by the Bau-Xi Gallery in Vancouver, where her latest show, Open the World, is on view from Sept. 8 to Sept. 22.

Before the stroke, Bakes was studying art therapy in Vancouver after earning a Bachelor’s degree in fine arts at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. She worked in a representational style. “My paintings are completely different than they used to be,” she says. “I painted a lot from memory before.”

Now she explores the effects of light and wind in nature, staring out a window as she paints, at times using photographs as references. Some paintings, like Vulnerability of Trust, have recognizable trees or meadows. Others seem almost completely abstract. “Some days are windier than others,” she says. “I’m not doing star constellations, but I am doing almost like foliage constellations in terms of really windy days and how distorted your vision can get.”

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Sheri Bakes, “As Kierkegaard Says to the Sun,” 2018

oil on canvas, 48” x 48”

How do you paint under such conditions? It becomes an exercise in trust, in seeing afresh, and moving in the moment. The goal of many meditators and spiritual seekers is hers by default. She has no other choice.

Not that it is easy.

"My job is alchemy," she tells me in a follow-up note after the interview. "To turn something with no value into something of value. To turn internal darkness, pain, struggle, upset, near insanity into hope, something sane, beautiful, full of life, light and movement." 

Art, she says, helps her move through difficult thoughts and feelings. 

Bakes hopes her paintings, with their undeniable otherworldly quality – magic, energy, spirituality – however you want to describe that sparkle at the edge of perception, the mysterious space between what is visible and what is not, will help viewers have their own meditative experience.

“If they could access their own spaciousness, inside, sitting with the work, that would be my goal.” 

As she says in her note: "We are, actually, all just an abundance of vast open space." ■

Open the World is on view at the Bau-Xi Gallery in Vancouver from Sept. 8 to Sept. 22, 2018.