March 6 – April 7 2017
Cabrillo College Gallery
Gale Antokal’s deeply observed drawings of the everyday moment or object seem to present a kind of evidence of what lies beneath the surface of living, somehow capturing the essence of existence, proof of what our being here leaves behind. They fill us with a haunting feeling – echoing and reverberating in the viewer’s mind, urging us to contemplate the nature of seeing, being and remembering.
In her exquisitely rendered drawings, Antokal finesses various combinations of graphite, chalk, pastel, flour and ash onto the paper surface, using her index finger to attain rich, delicate tonalities. Working from photographic imagery of people, places and things, she studies and interprets images – her own, from books, or from the Internet – filtering them through her personal perceptions to tease out nuances of meaning.
Antokal holds a BFA and MFA from the California College of the Arts and is a Professor at San Jose State University in the Department of Art and Art History. In 1992 Antokal received a Visual Arts Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She has exhibited extensively, and is represented by Couturier Gallery in Los Angeles; Seager/Gray Gallery in Mill Valley, CA; Amy Simon Fine Art in Westport, CT; and Tayloe Piggott Gallery in Jackson, WY. Her work is included in numerous public, private and international collections. Antokal lives and works in Berkeley, California.
