Past Exhibitions

Currents is a gallery space dedicated to recognizing the work of emerging and evolving California artists. Featuring a different artist every two months, Currents presents a range of media, styles, and genres. 

Artist Statement

Young artists often start by emulating their predecessors—exploring movements, learning lessons, and incorporating what's useful. Even mature artists don't work in isolation.

At UC Berkeley, I was exposed to the Bay Area Figurative Movement through teachers like Joan Brown and Elmer Bischoff, with influences from David Park, Mary O'Neill, Karl Kasten, and Sylvia Lark. Nearby artists like Richard Diebenkorn and Society of Six member Louis Siegriest also enriched this creative community.

But whatever subject matter or techniques I picked up from my teachers, their primary influence was their attitude: independence and self-direction over conformity and commercialism.

My Nature Morte (still life) paintings and prints feature well-known images with objects in shallow spaces, incorporating Indian fabric, carvings, candlesticks, shells, and other bric-a-brac. I draw inspiration from diverse sources including Marsden Hartley's Maine landscapes, Surrealism, Fauvism, and Yoshitoshi, the Japanese Goya. My work in journalism, art, and book reviews also nourishes my artistic creations. The displayed woodblocks are surimono prints in the Japanese tradition, created as gifts and exchanges with friends, artists, collectors, and for exhibits.

– Robert Brokl

About the Artist

Robert Brokl received his MFA from UC Berkeley in 1982, studying under Elmer Bischoff, Joan Brown, and Jay De Feo. His work, inspired by German Expressionism and Japanese prints, includes woodblock printing and etching. He was an artist-in-residence at the de Young Museum and awarded a Gottlieb Foundation Grant. Brokl has exhibited widely, including the SFMOMA Artists Gallery and the Achenbach Foundation. His work is in public and corporate collections such as the Library of Congress and the Oakland Museum of California.

Image: Robert Brokl (b. 1948), Nature Morte—David Park, 2012, oil on panel, 32 x 48 in. Courtesy of the artist. © Robert Brokl
Photo: Luz Marina Ruiz