Photograph by George Sakkestad
Edward Rooks' wildlife works are on display at Gallery Saratoga.
Painter celebrates the beauty of nature
Gallery Saratoga features works of wildlife artist
By Shari Kaplan
San Jose resident Edward Rooks, Gallery Saratoga's featured artist for May, has learned how to combine his loves--biology, the outdoors and art--and turn them into a successful career.
A native of Trinidad, half of the Caribbean island country Trinidad and Tobago, Rooks grew up thinking he would become a biologist. As a youth, he caught and brought home wild animals, lizards and insects to study in terrariums or cages. He also enjoyed collecting seashells and butterflies and observing the wonders of nature. In later years, he got hooked on bird-watching, thanks to a friend who lent Rooks binoculars to glimpse an exotic bird called a trogon.
"If I'd been better at mathematics and chemistry, I probably would have become a biologist," Rooks says with a chuckle. Along with his biological pursuits, he also enjoyed drawing pictures of family and friends. To him it was just for fun; the fact that he had a natural talent didn't occur to him.
"My parents and my teachers recognized it before I did. So did some of my classmates--a lot of my fellow students would ask me to help them with their art projects," he recalls.
Rooks' parents bought him art supplies, but his awakening didn't really come until his teenage years, thanks to an art teacher who pushed her students to new artistic heights, teaching them the elements of art and challenging them discover their own talents. "It was learning by doing," he says, recalling how inspired he felt from that class.
In 1983, Rooks graduated from Syracuse University with a bachelor's degree in fine arts, with an emphasis in illustration. He then worked at the Simla Tropical Biological Research Station and as the assistant manager, naturalist and artist-in-residence at the Asa Wright Nature Centre, both jobs in Trinidad and Tobago. Three years later, he settled in the United States.
Rooks now works as a wildlife artist and freelance illustrator for numerous biological journals, nature magazines, booklets, newsletters, brochures, posters and calendars. He has won many awards from wildlife shows and art galleries and leads trips for Cheeseman's Ecology Safaris of Saratoga. He also takes frequent hikes and weekend jaunts, often with his wife, at which time he takes photographs to use as reference for future paintings.
At Gallery Saratoga, Rooks exhibits vibrantly colored acrylic paintings and Ilfochrome prints of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish, insects and historical recreations of wild areas, such as his idyllic portrait of Ohlone Indians in what is now Saratoga's Castle Rock State Park. Many of the animals are natives of California, the West Coast and South America. In each painting, Rooks uses minute brush strokes and color gradations to render plants, animals and people in exquisitely sharp detail.
"It's a meditative task for me. I have a lot of detail in my work--I have a picture of the end in sight and I'm just driving toward it, knowing eventually I'll have a realistic, three-dimensional piece," he explains. "It's tedious for some people, but in the end its worth it. I can do it and I want to do it."
Gallery Saratoga is at 14531 Big Basin Way, Unit 3. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saratoga, California Since 1975
