Sheila Pinkel

Sheila Pinkel (born 1941) is an American visual artist, activist and educator whose practice includes experimental light studies, photography, conceptual and graphic works, and public art. She first gained notice for cameraless photography begun in the 1970s that used light-sensitive emulsions and technologies to explore form; her later, socially conscious art combines research, data visualization, and documentary photography, making critical and ethical inquiries into the military-industrial complex and nuclear industry, consumption and incarceration patterns, and the effects of war on survivors, among other subjects. Writers identify an attempt to reveal the unseen—in nature and in culture—as a common thread in her work.

Pinkel has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Center for the Study of Political Graphics and National Endowment for the Arts, among others. She has exhibited internationally and her work belongs to public collections including those of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Centre Pompidou, Hammer Museum, and Museum of Contemporary Photography. In addition to her art, Pinkel has written for journals including Leonardo, Afterimage and Heresies, and taught at Pomona College in Claremont, California. She lives and works In Los Angeles.