About this event
A Berkeley resident, Gale Antokal was born in New York. A recipient of a Visual Arts Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, she is currently a Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at San Jose State University. She recently exhibited her work at Couturier Gallery in Los Angeles, and Patricia Sweetow Gallery in San Francisco.
Gale Antokal‘s drawings are made with a mixture of volatile materials, such as chalk, powder, graphite, flour and ash. Using documentary photographs as source, she creates evocative new images that never existed in the originals. "The photos I use are now considered for their degradation and inability to be read. I enhance them making the image even more low contrast. There is a vagueness of vision and clarity. It describes a "failure of sight" on many levels. It also speaks of how the past is obscured." The Spill, Antokal's project for the re-opening of The Magnes, is a departure from her usual technique. Starting from drawings in her series, We Are So Lightly Here (2003-2006), she will create an original video piece, to be projected on the lobby wall. This video correlates to Antokal's drawings of milk pouring down a staircase, originally made with pastel, graphite, ash and flour.