Squeak Carnath and John Yau

John Yau, Hyperallergic, writes about a studio visit with Squeak Carnath in Oakland. He begins by referencing his 2006 conversation, published in the Brooklyn Rail, setting the stage for this visit. At that time Carnath proclaimed that she was a painting 'chauvinist', meaning a work had to be paint on a flat plane, no other media or interventions were possible.  The rules were set and the artist had to move within them.  Yau writes

I think one reason that I am interested in artists who are “painting chauvinists” is because Carnwath’s statement has analogies with a poet’s belief that words can be any form, and take on any form — that they have an elasticity that goes beyond the descriptive. I am also quite certain that my poet-friends would agree with Carnwath’s declaration, which she has written across the surface of a number of her paintings, “Painting Is No Ordinary Object,” if they could substitute “poem” for “painting.” But, as these poets know, “painting” has an advantage over “poem” because it is both a noun and a verb, a thing and an action.  more

Painting Is, 2010, Oil and alkyd on canvas, 24 x 24 in

Squeak Carnwath, “Ship #2″ (2012), oil and alkyd on canvas

Plot, 2009, Oil and alkyd on canvas over panel, 55 x 50 in