Artist’s painting evokes the thrill of finishing
Tiko Kerr marks the event’s 30th anniversary with new artwork
For Tiko Kerr, it feels like only yesterday when he created his first promotional artwork for The Vancouver Sun Run.
His first acrylic painting in 2003 focused on the excitement and energy of the starting line. It featured his trademark wobbly view of the world: banners curved over runners massed together so they looked like they were in a dramatic arc of athletes.
It was a dynamic, imaginative work that captured the spirit of the run.
Before this time, Sun Run organizers tried to capture the essence of the event with graphics and computer- generated designs. But nothing seemed to work quite right.
Since arriving on the scene, Kerr has been the Sun Run’s artist of choice. His paintings appear on all promotional material including the race T- shirt, posters and brochures.
And with that first assignment in mind, Kerr set to work this summer on the event’s 30th anniversary painting.
He thought if his first piece focused on the starting line, then the painting marking the Sun Run’s third decade should be about the finish line.
“This milestone of 30 years impressed me,” Kerr said in an interview. “It’s the culmination of an interesting journey that we’ve all been on together. I felt that the finish line was a declaration of all sorts of people participating in the race: people in ( wheelchairs) and all age groups. They’re really the essence of why this race experience is so successful.”
He has turned his inner eye to the sense of accomplishment and achievement that participants experience after putting in months of training to reach their goal. The painting shows runners as they come off the Cambie Street bridge onto Pacific. Runners have their hands raised aloft in celebration.
His wobbly lines are still there in the 2014 painting, although not as prominent as in previous years.
Kerr doesn’t add the wobbles on a whim: Kerr has an astigmatism that causes him to see the world differently than others. “It comes and goes,” he said about his wobble. “In some of the ( paintings) in the past, they’re more about the structure of the environment. Because there are so many figures in this one, it may have caused me to straighten my wobble.”
While his visual quirk sounds unusual, he believes we all have unique ways of viewing the world. “I really firmly believe that we all see the world in different ways,” he said. “That became apparent to me when I studied the history of French painting.”
He believes that an artist such as Claude Monet, the greatest of the French impressionists, painted water lilies that shimmered because that’s the way he saw the world as his eyes deteriorated over time. Scientists now believe that as Monet aged and his cataracts developed, he increasingly saw the world around him as blurry.
Kerr said as he gets older, he’s working hard to make his paintings closer to what he sees: heightened colours and sharp contrasts — and wobbly shapes.
He said he usually has about four paintings going at any one time. He likes to move from one to another to keep himself from getting bored and overworking them. He compares changing from one canvas to another to getting on a fresh horse to keep going on a long ride.
Three years after his first Sun Run painting, Kerr’s health deteriorated to the point where he was close to death. He’s a long- term survivor living with HIV, having been first diagnosed in 1985 with the virus that leads to AIDS.
In 2006, he was one of four Canadians who needed two antiretroviral drugs approved by Health Canada to stay alive. Kerr was part of a big public campaign to pressure Ottawa to allow the experimental drugs on compassionate grounds. The federal government relented and Kerr and four others were able to use TMC114 and TMC125.
The impact on Kerr’s health was immediate: He went from preparing for his death to getting his life back.
Today, he doesn’t think much about AIDS unless asked by a reporter. “You know, I’ve totally recovered,” he said.
“I take medication as everyone in my situation does and we all maintain undetectable levels, which means the virus can’t be detected in the blood, which is a miracle.”
He still does public speaking on his personal experience with HIV and talking about fighting Health Canada to get the lifesaving drugs he needed.
“Otherwise, I keep fit, eat well and keep healthy — and don’t think about it.”
Kerr talked about the Sun Run and his work in his studio in east Vancouver. The studio smelled of paint and looked like a place of work: the hardwood floor was covered with an abstract pattern of 20 years of streaks and spills.
Kerr is already onto his next project. He said he’s excited about painting abstract works inspired by classical music.
“As we become more sophisticated digitally, I take great comfort in the fact of the handmade mark,” he said. “I don’t think anything can ever replicate that no matter how sophisticated we become.
“It is those subtle nuances of what goes on in the mind and how that translates onto a canvas is just fascinating to me. I’ve been doing it for 30 years and I feel as if I’ve just begun.”