Squeak Carnwath

Squeak Carnwath never really knows exactly what she's going to do with a piece, but she's perfectly fine with that. With no game plan in mind, Carnwath feels she can take any route with her oil paintings since she can always paint over something she doesn't like. 

Oil paint to Carnwath is like a body for her paintings. She'll add layers upon layers of paint to her works and these layers serve as a kind of skin for her art. Her works are also about the wear and tear a body goes through as time passes and it ages. There's no specific meaning to Carnwath's pieces either. She leaves it up to the viewers to interpret what they see and listen to what the painting is trying to tell them individually. 

Carnwath's works have a collage-like feel to them, although they are anything but. Carnwath solely uses oil paints, so everything you see in one of her pieces is actually paint. Many things are depicted in her paintings, such as geometric shapes, organic shapes, and representative images. She also uses text in her works (also done in oil paint) more because she likes the way handwriting looks than what the handwriting is stating. 

Creating art is very cathartic to Carnwath. She believes that through art, you can discover who you are and what your place is in the universe.

Information provided by:

ArtBabble. Indianapolis Museum of Art, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.