Cheri Gaulke

Cheri Gaulke (born 1954) is a visual artist most known for her role in the Feminist Art Movement in southern California in the 1970s and her current work on gay and lesbian families. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Minneapolis College of Art and Design and a Master of Arts degree (in Feminist Art/Education) from Goddard College.

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In 1975, Gaulke moved to Los Angeles and became involved with the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman's Building. At the Feminist Studio Workshop, Gaulke studied with Suzanne Lacy and focused primarily on performance art. There she created a character she called Cinderella, who Gaulke describes as not conforming to any specific sex or gender role and thus "in a constant state of transformation." In addition to her solo work, Gaulke collaborated with Anne Gauldin to produce The Malta Project, in which the two performed rites related to female spirituality at prehistoric temples throughout Malta. Gaulke has been a co-founder of two collaborative feminist performance groups: Feminist Art Workers (1976–81), co-founded with Nancy Angelo, Candace Compton, Vanalyne Green, and Laurel Klick, and Sisters of Survival (SOS), co-founded in 1981 with Nancy Angelo, Jerri Allyn, Anne Gauldin, and Sue Maberry.

Though Gaulke has moved away from performance, the feminist art strategies that she helped to innovate in the 1970s in southern California continue in her work. Her art continues to be a vehicle for social commentary and as a way to tell the stories of individuals and groups under-represented in society. She works in a variety of media, but mostly video, installation art, artists' books, and public art. Such projects have included a video in collaboration with lesbian and gay teens, a photographic wall installation about lesbian and gay families, a video installation with Latino teenagers about the L.A. River, and a video installation about kids’ perspectives on a river in North Carolina. Gaulke has completed three public art projects—a Metro-Rail Station in Los Angeles that tells stories about an oft-ignored urban river, an outdoor sculptural piece for a library in Lake View Terrace, and three stainless steel and glass glowing “Pillars of Community” for the City of Lakewood, California. A black granite memorial honoring the service of Filipino WWII veterans was dedicated on November 11, 2006 in a park in Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles, the first such monument in the U.S.

In 1991 Gaulke was an Artist Book Resident at Women's Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY. While a resident, Gaulke published Impedement, a handmade artist's book that investigates the abuse of women’s footwear and feet through the ages, from the ancient Chinese foot binding to high heeled shoes of the present. Personal and historical narratives illustrate the results of cultures’ persisting foot fetish. Nested within the book is a pop-up which presents the reader with a packet of “seeds” for change. Impedement was published as an edition of 200.

Gaulke has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, and the Brody Arts Fund. She has exhibited her work in numerous formats all over the world, including exhibitions at the Los Angeles Art Association (LAAA) and Museum of Modern Art as well as on buses and in churches.

In 1986 she received the Vesta Award from the Los Angeles Woman's Building for Contributions to Performance art, and she was honored with a mid-career fellowship from the Cultural Affairs Department (COLA grant) in 2004-05. In 2013, she received the Art as a Hammer Award from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.