Artist Statement
Hal Gage’s photographic and mixed media artwork has been exhibited in Alaska, the lower forty-eight states, and selectively internationally. His images are in such collections as: Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, Alaska; Pratt Museum, Homer, Alaska; Alaska State Museum, Juneau; and the University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks—where his work is on permanent display. Among other distinctions and awards, in 2004 and again 2010 he received the highly competitive Individual Artist Fellowship from the Rasmuson Foundation. His series, “Ice: a personal meditation” toured Alaska premiering as a major solo exhibition in 2004 at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center and to 4 other venues ending at the State Museum in Juneau in 2006.
Process Statement
Gage’s process is to find a place or subject and work with it for an extended period of time. His projects usually take years or even decades of concentrated effort to complete. It is only over extended exposure to his subject that he comes to understand what it has to say. Quantum mechanics has shown that elemental particles that once interacted, when separated, still act as if connected. This is called “entwinement.” We are all, on a fundamental level, connected to everything. “It is not my desire to overly anthropomorphize the landscape, but I do think that there is an order in which everything has its place, including humankind. There is no hierarchy placing humans at the top. Our roll is no more or less important than that of the plankton in the sea or the rain from the sky. But we do enjoy a unique position. We are the self-aware component of the order of things and can appreciate the wonder of all the interconnection of life.”
For the last 20 years Gage has worked on the subject of ice. His objective is to portray ice in a way that gets to the deeper emotional essence and learn what it has to say to us about the world that we live in; the impact of man on the environment, and our place in it.
Hal Gage was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. Since early childhood he knew that he wanted to pursue a life in the arts. In 1977 he picked up a camera after having studied painting at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Art making has been a primary force in his life for more than 30 years.
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