Squeak Carnwath: Painting Is No Ordinary Object - Softcover

Tsujimoto, Karen; Yau, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0764949179 ISBN 13: 9780764949173

Publisher: Pomegranate, 2009

Synopsis

The paintings of Squeak Carnwath (American, b. 1947), often subtly illuminated by meticulously applied layers of glaze, embody complex layers of meaning. "Paintings are not ordinary objects," the artist observes. "Painting is a carrier of meaning, of human touch. Each brush stroke or smear of pigment is freighted with philosophical inquiry." In Carnwath's works, rows of writing are placed to slow the eye, "to put the viewer in real time." Recurring motifs touch on personal and universal themes, from a rabbit tentatively seeking his place in a chaotic world to the seated blue Medicine Buddha, healer of ills and reminder of the latent Buddha nature in each of us.

Published in conjunction with the exhibition organized by the Oakland Museum of California, Squeak Carnwath: Painting Is No Ordinary Object celebrates the wonder and spirit embodied in each of Carnwath's works. Over eighty full-color reproductions trace the development of the artist's distinctive style from 1970s to the present, while essays by curator Karen Tsujimoto and art critic John Yau explore the personal, social, and artistic context of this powerful body of work.

About this title

About the Author

Squeak Carnwath is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and two Individual Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Carnwath received her MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1977 and has taught at the University of California since 1982. Carnwath maintains a studio in Oakland, California, where she has lived and worked since 1970.

Karen Tsujimoto is Senior Curator of Art at the Oakland Museum of California and organizer of the exhibition that accompanies this book. She is the author of Wayne Thiebaud (1985) and Dorothea Lange: Archive of an Artist (1995) and coauthor of monographs on the art of Peter Voulkos (1995), Joan Brown (1998), and David Ireland (2003). In 2004 she was the recipient of the Northern California ArtTable Annual Award for Service in the Visual Arts.

John Yau is a leading art critic, poet, essayist, and prose writer. His works include A Thing Among Things: The Art of Jasper Johns (2008), Paradiso Diaspora (2006), The Passionate Spectator: Essays on Art and Poetry (2006), Ing Grish (2005), and In The Realm of Appearances: The Art of Andy Warhol (1993). He has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Academy of American Poets. Yau teaches at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pomegranate
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0764949179
• ISBN 13: 9780764949173
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 160