Pacifica’s Sanchez Art Center Hosts “Intensity of Silence” by Gale Antokal in the Main Gallery

Gale Antokal at Sanchez Art Center Plus Two Additional Shows, June 3 – 26, 2022

Sanchez Art Center approaches the middle of the year with three new exhibitions, featuring Intensity of Silence by artist Gale Antokal; plus 5 Wishes, encouraging positive dialogue about death and dying; and, Tell Me a Story, a group show by Art Guild of Pacifica.

The opening reception for all three shows is on Friday, June 3, from 7 to 9 pm, with music by The Breeze (aka Jamey Brzezinski).

A daytime reception for artist Gale Antokal will also be held on Saturday, June 4, from 1:30 – 3:30 pm.

Gale Antokal’s body of work, on view in the Main Gallery, is aptly titled Intensity of Silence.   Intensity is defined as extreme degree of strength, force, energy or feeling.   The drawings made with graphite, flour, ash and pastel on paper are forceful in their quietude.   The medium addresses the artist’s personal iconography, with ash the finite end of all material, while flour is the sustenance of life.  Antokal shares that 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”.

Her images on the paper appear in a space that is undefined evoking a sense of mystery that invites the viewer to linger trying to discern what’s beyond the edges.  In Place 6, a solitary rower is centered on the paper in such a way that you think you can hear the quiet gentle rhythm of the oars in the water.  One wonders is the background clouds or trees on the shore?  Where has the individual come from and where they are going?  Are there others?

Inspiration is taken from photographic collections in books and online archives, with figures and transportation conveyances seemingly from another time and a place that once was, though the artist has noted that recent works are motivated by stories of recent war, trauma migration and loss.

Gale Antokal was born in New York, New York, and received her BFA (1980) and MFA from the California College of the Arts in 1984. In 1992 Antokal received a Visual Arts Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.  She is a Professor Emeritus at San Jose State University in the Department of Art and Art History.  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.

The public is invited to enjoy a conversation between Gale Antokal and Richard Whittaker (founder, Works & Conversations) on Sunday, June 26, 3:30 pm.

This talk is presented through Sanchez Art Center’s free art education and engagement programming.

Also opening June 3, the East Gallery presents 5 Wishes, encouraging positive dialogue about death and dying, an exhibit envisioned by Dr. Martina Ayala, an award-winning filmmaker, recognized educator and community leader.

She has curated exhibits in San Francisco and Los Angeles focusing on the Day of the Dead, gentrification, ancestral healing and women.

For this exhibit, Ayala invited thirteen artists to express their feelings about death through art providing space for reflection about the act of surrendering to life’s transitions.  Inspired by her elderly parents who engaged her in the process of completing advanced health care directives,
“5 Wishes” was the title of the document that she helped her parents complete.  Martina’s initial reaction was discomfort and denial of the inevitable end of life stage that her parents and all living beings go through.  As she went through the process, she realized the amazing gift her parents were gifting her by ensuring that their wishes, values, life goals, and preferences regarding future medical care and end of life planning were addressed.

This show invites you to surrender to the process of living and dying as an act of self-love. We invite you to explore death as a call to action.

On Saturday, June 11, beginning at 3:30 pm, a Gallery Walk will be held with artists in the show sharing about their work and personal journey, to inspire opening ourselves to conversation about a part of life, death.

Concurrently, in the West Gallery the Art Guild of Pacifica presents a group themed show, Tell Me A Story, highlighting the important role of stories as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and even to install moral values.

Sanchez Art Center is located at 1220 Linda Mar Blvd in Pacifica, about a mile east of Highway 1.

Following opening night, the galleries are open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 1–5 pm, and by appointment, through June 26.

For more information, info@SanchezArtCenter.org or  650.355.1894 or visit SanchezArtCenter.org.