Clare Kambhu

Chess, 2021
oil on panel
20 x 24 inches
photo credit: Alexander Perrelli

I was losing to my 9th grade students in chess last year whenever they hung around during lunch to play so I got a chess board to practice. I haven’t seen them since. Grids and boxes frame us all even more during remote schooling.

At a moment in which public education is highly contested, both threatened and threatening, we often see school furniture as a stand in for student bodies. I make observational paintings in public schools, teachers unions, and other bureaucratic spaces. The corners of desks, floor tiles, papers, and chairs are the focus of my attention.

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