Gale Antokal

Gale Antokal’s figurative work is often situated in a space devoid of a vanishing point, with only a vague sense of perspective diminution. This enhances the work's ambiguity, creating a stateless, undefined space that lacks a specific location, an effect not evident in the photographic source material. Her practice has returned again and again to creating figurative work with mixtures of pure white chalk, graphite, flour, and ash, also applied with her index finger. In her personal iconography, ash is the finite end of all material, while the flour is the sustenance of life. These light and dry dusts can be easily dispersed by the slightest movement of air. The vulnerability of her materials serves as a metaphor for the human condition that has potential of being erased and can vanish in a brief moment.

Recently, her practice has been focused on drawings made with pencil and graphite wash using opaque white synthetic paper on which the graphite has been painted, abraded, dissolved, erased, and ultimately burnished into a surface that resembles polished mirror. An early childhood memory was the pleasure of drawing with her index finger on large misty mirrors, that would quickly evaporate, and disappear. Her current mirrored drawing surfaces often recall early to mid-century photographic processes. Some of these drawings are photo-sourced, but the ideas are triggered by pure response to the excitement and sensuousness of the material itself. Recently, in Antokal’s Cascade series, she has embraced abstraction, using water-soluble ink, brushes, squeegees and sponges on synthetic paper, relishing in what emerges. Combined, these materials have their own gorgeous and unpredictable nature that informs and shapes the direction of her works, which are often color studies of Antokal’s surrounding or art throughout history.

Gale Antokal was born in New York, New York, and received her BFA (1980) and MFA (1984) from the California College of the Arts. She is a Professor Emerita at San Jose State University in the Department of Art and Art History and was Coordinator in the Pictorial area. Antokal held several visiting artist positions and teaching positions including the San Francisco Art Institute, Instructor of Art History at the Lehrhaus Institute, and the American College in Jerusalem. She was an affiliate faculty member in the JSSItaly program in Civita Castellana, Italy in 2015. In 1992 Antokal received a Visual Arts Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work has been exhibited by Chandler Gallery in Mill Valley, CA; Seager Gray Gallery in Mill Valley, CA, Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco, CA; Tayloe Piggott Gallery in Jackson Hole, WY; and Amy Simon Fine Arts in Westport, Connecticut, among other galleries. Her work is included in public, private, and international collections.