Notes and nuances

East Bay artist Squeak Carnwath’s still as busy as she ever was, as evidenced by Paintings and Tapestries, her recent work displayed until December 2 at B. Sakata Garo, 923 20th Street. Carnwath continues stringing together the past and present in an entertaining stream of consciousness and imagery. In “Monkey Business,” rendered flatly in oil and alkyd on canvas and panel, Greek amphoras, like those you studied in art history, take center stage. One of many cryptic scrawlings around the delineated “Guilt Free Zone” notes a transaction in which Renoir and Warhol paintings find no buyers while lab chimp Congo’s art fetches $25,000. Black vinyl-record-like discs march across the top, and below them, richly colored bricks pull it all together into a dream-like scenario. In “Ancient Life,” a cotton and viscose tapestry spun at Oakland’s Magnolia Editions art press, an image of Greek antiquity is flanked by Carnwath’s observations, like this one: “We are all in the same boat.” For more information call (916) 447-4276.