Q & A with Gale Antokal.
To coincidence with her current show at Patricia Sweetow, I did a brief interview with Berkeley artist Gale Antokal. Here's the tease...
TB: In the last decade your drawings have changed -- the orbs, spheres and glassware you were drawing the '90s were very precise, the images very specific. Not that you're a photorealist, but your intention seemed to be a kind of elegant appraisal of certain objects.
More recently your drawings (pastel on paper) have become hazier and more ambiguous... and you seem to be using photos as a source now, instead of the actual object.
GA: Actually, the objects from the '90s were all photo based. I took hundreds of photos in different light sources, and in those days, pre-Photoshop, I would have the 35mm rolls developed, and each time, alter the color temperature and contrast. I needed the photography to give the drawing a foundation on which to reestablish an elusive power -- an intensified subject matter in the foreground, a heightened realism, yet there was actually a subtle, complex layer of secrets in the relationships and qualities of the forms being described in pastel.
The photos I use are now considered for their degradation and inability to be read.
photo: Place 26, Gale Antokal
