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 ... Read more

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.