Squeak Carnwath constructs a unique vocabulary of pictographs and hieroglyphs that constitute a personal index of meaning. The repetition of these symbols, shapes, and colors, within each painting and across her body of work, is meditative; her simple objects become mantras through the act of painting them over and over. As Carnwath explains, “Painting is a philosophical enterprise in which through a kind of alchemy, inert material becomes something else – a document of being, a repository of the human spirit.” Carnwath’s paintings were the focus of a major exhibition surveying the past 15 years of her career at the Oakland Museum of California in the summer of 2009. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, among others. She is represented by the John Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco, California.