Paintings and Pots

Press Release

Nicelle Beauchene Gallery is pleased to present the first New York solo exhibition by Sarah Crowner.

Transforming the legacy of hard-edged geometric abstraction, specifically from the 1950s and 1960s (e.g. Victor Vasarely, Lygia Clark, Olle Baertling, Bridget Riley), Sarah Crowner employs both original and appropriated compositions as patterns and templates to construct paintings that exist as hand-built objects. Using a sewing machine, painted panels of canvas are sewn together with blocks of monochromatic fabrics and raw linen, thereby reconstructing and reducing the rigorous systematic approach established by the specters of Modernism.

Crowner further investigates the history of Modernity through the juxtaposition of these paintings with freeform hand-built ceramic vessels that oscillate between traditional craft and sculpture. Taking cues from the new ceramists of the mid 20th Century, Crowner retains simplicity with her neutral palette, modest scale and organic forms. Unglazed, hollowed out and bottomless, these pots form relationships between the veracity of cultural objects and the formal constraints that surround contemporary art.

Sarah Crowner lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz and her MFA from Hunter College in 2002. Crowner has participated in exhibitions worldwide including a recent two person show with Paulina Olowska at DAAD Galerie, Berlin; a solo exhibition at Nice + Fit Gallery, Berlin; a group project with North Drive Press at White Columns, NY; and various collaborative projects with Dexter Sinister.