{"id":293886,"date":"2026-02-20T19:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T19:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/293886\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T19:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T19:05:09","slug":"squeak-carnwath-paints-her-own-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/293886\/","title":{"rendered":"Squeak Carnwath Paints Her Own Path"},"content":{"rendered":"

Art Review<\/a><\/p>\n

This artist rejects the notion that paint as a medium inevitably becomes exhausted, incapable of making something, however broken it may be.<\/p>\n


\n \"John
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

John Yau<\/a><\/p>\n

\n February 20, 2026
\n \u2014 4 min read\n <\/p>\n

\"Squeak
\n Squeak Carnwath, “Ancestors and Future Ghosts” (2023), oil and alkyd on canvas over panel (all images courtesy the artist and Jane Lombard Gallery)<\/p>\n

When I interviewed<\/a> Squeak Carnwath in 2006, she told me that painting \u201ccan take on any form.\u201d Her desire to make \u201csomething expansive\u201d within the legacy of painting has interested me because it rejects the notion that the medium inevitably becomes exhausted, incapable of making something, however broken it may be. It is why I went to her latest exhibition, Goddess of All<\/a>, at Jane Lombard.<\/p>\n

Carwath, whose work was the subject of an in-depth examination, Painting Is No Ordinary Object<\/a>, organized by Karen Tsujimoto at the Oakland Museum of California in 2009, has long flown under the radar in New York City. Neither the Whitney Museum of American Art nor the Museum of Modern Art has anything in their collection by Carnwath, now in her late 70s.<\/p>\n

I cannot help but wonder if this neglect is because of her belief in the legacy of oil painting dating back to the Renaissance, as well as the fact that she has never been associated with Bay Area figurative painting or the Funk movement, despite living, teaching, and exhibiting there for many years. Artists who follow their own paths are generally not held in high regard unless it fits a curator\u2019s agenda regarding politics, hot-button topics, or the \u201cright\u201d kind of abstraction \u2014 which are reasons why Joanne Greenbaum, a New York-based painter who is Carnwath\u2019s temperamental opposite, is missing from those museum collections, too. Their fierce independence has not gained them the recognition it should have long ago.<\/p>\n

\"\"Squeak Carnwath, “Past, Present, Future” (2025), oil and alkyd on canvas over panel<\/p>\n

There are 11 paintings in the exhibition, all of them square and ranging from 36 by 36 inches to 77 by 77 inches. Done in oil and alkyd on canvas mounted on panel with the titles written on the sides, they are made completely in oil paint, even when the lines and words appear to be drawn in pencil.<\/p>\n

Carnwath\u2019s continually expanding vocabulary consists of meaningful motifs that reappear in her work \u2014 an LP record with a red label, a sinking ship, a 45 automatic with a red \u201cX\u201d through it, the outlines of the Venus de Milo and other classical busts and statuary, a tree stump, bands of color and abstract patterns \u2014 along with different phrases, such as \u201cguilt free zone.\u201d The LP record signifies that we go around once in life, while the sinking ship conveys inescapable disaster.<\/p>\n

Goddess of All includes her recent addition of a motif consisting of three black silhouettes: Edgar Degas\u2019s \u201cThe Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer\u201d (c. 1881), the Statue of Liberty, and what looks like a crowned figure sitting in a high-backed chair or throne. Each silhouette signifies an idealized view of a woman, from aspiring dancer to powerful ruler.<\/p>\n

\"\"Squeak Carnwath, “Our Own” (2022), oil and alkyd on canvas over panel<\/p>\n

\u201cAncestors and Future Ghosts\u201d (2023) is divided vertically into two unequal areas (one-third on the left and two-thirds on the right) by a band consisting of different-colored rectangles stacked on top of each other. On the left side, on a ground the color of poached salmon, we see the three silhouettes, writing, the black outline of an unidentified female figure overlaid by large, many-petaled flowers. From the petals to the writing, everything underscores the painting\u2019s flat surface as a repository for graffiti, images, image fragments, and overheard snippets of the langue de tribe. Carnwath\u2019s paintings comment on the present even as they speak to ancestors and speculate about future ghosts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAncient Fragments\u201d (2025) is populated by red outlines of Roman busts, goddesses, insects, flowers, and the motif of two genderless faces passionately kissing. Two disembodied eyes look down at the word \u201cinsight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Squeak Carnwath, “Ancient Fragments” (2025), oil and alkyd on canvas over panel<\/p>\n

What are we to make of this or the other paintings in the exhibition? I don\u2019t see Carnwath as being didactic when she writes \u201cOur bodies are our own\u201d above the scribbled-over phrase \u201ca sovereign territory\u201d on the lower right side of \u201cOur Own\u201d (2022). Opposite this statement, on the left side of the painting, we read, \u201cWe are the sovereign rulers of our own bodies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Carnwath has recognized that the world she grew up in has changed and there is no going back. The sinking ship in the upper half of the painting, against a pale gray ground, is situated above the black outline of two faces kissing against an off-white ground, above the crude lineation of crimson lips. Carnwath operates under the deep paradox of her commitment to paint and painting, even as she lives in a world that is spiraling out of control, and wrests out of it precarious instances of order.<\/p>\n

Goddess of All<\/a> continues at Jane Lombard Gallery (58 White Street, Tribeca, Manhattan) through February 28. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Art Review This artist rejects the notion that paint as a medium inevitably becomes exhausted, incapable of making…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-293886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}