American, b. 1947
Squeak Carnwath is a painter who lives and works in Oakland, CA. An artist whose career has spanned decades, Carnwath has cultivated a distinctive blend of disparate 1970s art movements, including New Image painting, Conceptual Art and above all Process Art.
Carnwath draws upon the philosophical and mundane experiences of daily life in her paintings and prints, which can be identified by lush fields of color combined with text, patterns, and identifiable images. Her paintings fluently speak several languages at once. Areas of flat color are adrift with abstract and representational elements as well as writing — passing thoughts, the news, quips — often partly submerged in the shuffle of erasures and new additions. Despite a loose, improvisational appearance, there are secret moments of trompe l’oeil: pencil writing and charcoal scribbles are rendered in paint. Carnwath’s idea of process is all-inclusive: it combines the physical making of the painting with her thoughts, the world at large and also life in the studio.
Carnwath has received numerous awards including a Lee Krasner Lifetime Achievement Award, the Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art (SECA) Award from San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, two Individual Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Award for Individual Artists from the Flintridge Foundation. Carnwath is Professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley.
Carnwath draws upon the philosophical and mundane experiences of daily life in her paintings and prints, which can be identified by lush fields of color combined with text, patterns, and identifiable images. Her paintings fluently speak several languages at once. Areas of flat color are adrift with abstract and representational elements as well as writing — passing thoughts, the news, quips — often partly submerged in the shuffle of erasures and new additions. Despite a loose, improvisational appearance, there are secret moments of trompe l’oeil: pencil writing and charcoal scribbles are rendered in paint. Carnwath’s idea of process is all-inclusive: it combines the physical making of the painting with her thoughts, the world at large and also life in the studio.
Carnwath has received numerous awards including a Lee Krasner Lifetime Achievement Award, the Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art (SECA) Award from San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, two Individual Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Award for Individual Artists from the Flintridge Foundation. Carnwath is Professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley.
