YOU ARE STILL POETRY (even if no one rhymes with you) ~ Gilles Goyette

Gilles Jean Joseph Goyette was born on Sept. 2, 1966 in Marville, France into a Royal Canadian Air Force family. The third of four siblings, he was much loved as the only boy. His early years were spent in Europe and on remote RCAF bases in rural Quebec. These were happy times with Bugs Bunny and homemade beans on Sunday afternoons, and he later described playing outdoors there as living in paradise. In 1975, the family was stationed to North Bay, Ontario – multi-story buildings, English TV! For the next twelve years he got down to business of growing up and finishing school, before striking out for Toronto at 21.

Gilles was an inquisitive child, spending much of his time deep in thought and being creative. His artistic abilities were evident even in his childhood artwork, poems, and the complicated spaceships he built out of basic Lego blocks – beyond any Lego kit you could buy today. His insights were thoughtful and mature beyond his years, but he was also extremely silly and had a joyous sense of humour.

His parents recognized his affinity for music and started him in piano at seven. Hailed in the family as “The Great Sentobia”, he quickly claimed the title of best Bach player at Kiwanis Music Festivals and impressed people with perfect renditions of popular songs he sang with his sister. As a teenager he learned Kate Bush’s discography in one week and composed both classical and contemporary music. He immersed himself in many interests and everything was done with precision and from a place of deep exploration.

In Toronto he bought a Korg M1 synthesizer and an electric Yamaha piano, inventing an audio artform he called “sound paintings”. (Some early examples can be heard on his YouTube channel,https://www.youtube.com/@MrShanktorsion  accompanied by images of his artwork.) His many collaborations with modern dance choreographers eventually led to a Dora Mavor Moore Award nomination for original composition in 2010. During his last years, he also composed a huge number of new sound paintings, using apps he created himself through AI.

He was a long-time resident of Toronto’s Cabbagetown district, where he lived with his beloved cats in his self-styled art studio. Locals dubbed him “The Amelia Street Whistler” because he walked while whistling the most complex classical pieces, like Bach’s whole “Art of the Fugue”. He was also well-known as a waiter at the iconic Pear Tree Restaurant for more than two decades, and a regular pub patron at The House on Parliament, where he’d sit and write for hours with a Jamieson’s beside his stack of books.

A prolific artist, Gilles began painting as a way to stay creative when not composing, and he had several successful exhibitions, notably at the Pear Tree and in Northrop Frye Hall at the University of Toronto. Painting with no preconception, he was recognized for his striking, unclassifiable style. His titles were equally creative – the title of this obituary is taken from one of his works. When asked how he knew his paintings were finished, he said they vibrated. It was at this time he adopted the moniker “Goatboy – Peace, Love, Happiness and Darkness” reflecting his all-encompassing vision as an artist.

His first photography project, “Lost in Light” (dedicated to his father), was exhibited as an installation at Gallery Arcturus as part of the Toronto’s 2015 Contact Festival and chosen by NOW Magazine as one of its “Must-See” shows. Over the course of more than a year, he took 15,000 photos of the streetcorner from his window on Parliament St., then composed a “film” out of 1,500 stills accompanied by his own sound score. https://www.houseofshake.com/lost-in-light.

Gilles and his friend Michael Caplan got into a habit of eating together for a number of years, sitting at local diner Johnny G’s and talking about everything under the sun, from art and poetry to philosophy and politics. Friends and neighbours would sometimes drop by and join them for “Breakfast with Michael and Gilles!"

Over the last few years, they shared an apartment, and Gilles settled into what he called his life’s work, the Random Generated Text Project, saying he was happier than he’d ever been. The roots of the RGTP were in formal experiments he did with his mother’s Hermes 3000 typewriters in the 80s, extensive poetry explorations in his journals, and “The Documents” (2001), two works on paper that look like monolithic Rothko paintings from a distance, but up close reveal themselves as lines of the tiniest gel ink handwriting.

All three volumes of this massive project – his pyramid, as he called it – are in production by House of ShAkE, Michael’s company. Vol. 1 is “Super Vox” (dedicated to his mother), for which there’s a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for the printing, and a small chapbook from Vol. 3, “Kallikantzaros”, is now available. Also in development are a collection of sound paintings and “Lost in Light” as a DVD/Blu-Ray.

Gilles passed away peacefully on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026, at Bridgepoint Hospital (Toronto), after a brave battle with cancer. He was 59. From childhood on he was a true artist, a shining spirit who touched everyone’s lives, even the nurses attending him at the end – a brave, if sometimes solitary but always life-loving visionary.

Gilles is deeply loved and missed by his family, proud parents, Helen (dearly departed) and Roger, sisters Reneé, Michèle and Jacqueline, and nieces, Dominique and Joelle.

Michael, Leo, Mischa, and Michael, who shared many of his last days with him, will remember him in a special light.

Rest in Peace, Love, Happiness and Darkness dearest Gilles. You are loved and will be eternally cherished.

Please visit https://www.houseofshake.com for more information about Gilles, and for details of his upcoming Celebration of Life, to be held in Cabbagetown, Toronto.

Donations to the GoFundMe for “Super Vox” can be made at

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-bring-super-vox-to-life