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| Group Shot 2 14 ¾ x 42 Pastel, Flour and Ash on paper 2007 |
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| Place 11 18 x 25 Pastel, Flour and Ash on paper 2007 |
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| Place 12 15 x 20 Pastel on paper 2007 |
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Gale Antokal's delicate pastels describe a kind of mundane surrealism. The surrealism stems not from the the subject matter (that's where the mundane comes in, the ordinary simple everyday events and places in the world around us) but rather from the ethereal effect she evokes from her materials. Pastel's innate softness gives her images a shimmering unreality that seems on the verge of vanishing. It's as if seeing itself is an ephemeral act. In some of her work she replicates blurred landscapes photographed from a moving vehicle. But in doing so, her aim is not simply to replicate an effect of photography but to get closer to what it means for an artist to translate living vision into a still static image. Somehow she manages to capture in each piece a sense of the transitory and irreducable nature of vision, and in this way conveys a similar metaphor for life itself. It's a touching and haunting world that she depicts. You can see much more work on her website: www.galeantokal.com
Her work was recently featured in New american Paintings 91
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