Gaulke, Cheri

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 work on gay and lesbian families. Gaulke 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. In 1975, she 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.

Gaulke's last performance was in 1992 at Highways Performance, Santa Monica. 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.