Saturday, March 30, 2024

Sobrane Simcock – the colourful life of a synesthete

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Serena Kirby, ARR.News
Serena Kirby, ARR.Newshttps://www.instagram.com/serenakirbywa/
Serena Kirby is a freelance reporter, writer and photographer based in regional Western Australia. With a background in public relations, education and tourism she’s had 30 years experience writing and photographing for local, national and international publications. Her current focus is on sharing stories from the sticks; its people, places and products and the life that lies beyond the city limits. She enjoys living in a small town while raising a tall teenager.
Sobrane Simcock
Sobrane Simcock. Photo: Serena Kirby.

Broome artist Sobrane Simcock, is well known for her brightly coloured, joy-filled paintings and her well-stocked gallery is filled with her eye-catching work.  Her artwork also appears in large-scale murals adorning hundreds of walls, watertanks and streetscapes around Australia.

But there’s one colourful talent Sobrane usually keeps to herself.  Sobrane is a synesthete; one of those rare people with the perceptual phenomenon known as synesthesia.

The word ‘synesthesia’ has its origins in the Greek words: ‘synth’ meaning together and ‘esthesia’ meaning perception. Whether you call it a gift, talent or condition, synesthesia causes sensory information – that comes from sight, taste, sound, smell and touch – to stimulate unexpected parts of the brain causing some senses to intertwine. There are many types of synesthesia and the most common is where colours connect with letters and numbers. But there’s also sound-to-colour and smell-to-colour synesthesia.  Sobrane has all of these and more.

Kingfisher by Sobrane Simcock
Artwork and photo: Sobrane Simcock

“I was 30 when I discovered I had synesthesia,” Sobrane says. “I saw a science program on TV where they were looking for people to participate in a study. I’d had it all my life and never realised people didn’t see what I saw. It totally shocked me.”

Sobrane says she loved going to school as the blackboard was always wonderfully coloured.

“All the numbers were in different colours. The number ‘three’ is yellow and ‘four’ is wine-burgundy. Number ‘one’ is a wild-card that changes into all sorts of colours depending on where it appears.”

When Sobrane took part in a synesthesia study at the University of Melbourne even she found it difficult to communicate what she saw.

“They asked me to draw the colours for each number and letter but each colour is so distinct I had to blend so many pencils together to even get close to recreating what I saw. It was so exhausting and taxing on my brain.”

Most synesthetes inherit their condition but in Sobrane’s case she’s not found any familial connection.  It’s also known to be more common in women than men and there’s often a link to artistic talents.  These factors do fit with Sobrane’s experience as she’s been a professional artist for several decades.

Blue Wren by Sobrane Simcock
Artwork and photo: Sobrane Simcock

Sobrane’s synesthesic brain is made even more unique by the fact that she also sees music in colour.

“I remember going to my first outdoor opera and seeing an aurora floating over the park and across the sky. It was magical; shifting and changing with the music. For me, the colours of music have a value too – some are heavy and some are light. When I hear a loud drum beat I can see it smash through the other colours – displacing them – just like a rock displaces water when you throw it into a pond.”

Adding to her sound-colour synesthesia Sobrane also sees colour in smells, leading her to see a trail of wafting hues when a perfumed-person walks past.

With around two percent of the population thought to have some form of synesthesia, research on the topic is considered incomplete as many people remain undiagnosed and the variables are often complex and unusual. 

Spatial-synesthesia is one of those rarer forms and Sobrane has that too. This space-to-colour perception enables Sobrane to take a small-scale sketch and scale it up onto a wall using her synesthesia as the only tool. There’s no grid making, no tape measure and no projector used. The intricacies of this are even hard for Sobrane to explain.

“I see colour in blank spaces and I’ve only realised this relatively recently. If a distance between two objects is a metre then I see that space as, let’s say, green. But that colour only applies to that particular one metre space. Other one metre spaces will have different colours.”  Even with all this going on in Sobrane’s busy brain she still manages to have a good head for business. Her Broome gallery is always busy and she’s due to open a second business venture this June. Her new outlet, Salt Moxie, is a t-shirt enterprise featuring collaborative artwork designs with local indigenious artists.

www.sobrane.com.au

Sobrane Simcock
Sobrane Simcock. Photo: Serena Kirby.

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