SARAH CROWNER
American artist Sarah Crowner (b. 1974) is recognised for her sustained engagement with line, form, colour and materiality. Working across a breadth of media, she investigates the relationship between the individual and the whole. In her sewn canvases, Crowner emphasises the physical act of making as well as the tactility of medium; broad brush strokes swipe across sliced forms that are then sewed and joined back together. Drawing inspiration from nature or art history, the paintings appear at first as familiar fields of drawn forms and colours. However, as her compositions draw the viewer into the work, the inherent structure reveals that there are no drawn lines, only objects touching each other to form the greater whole across their boundaries.
Pointing towards an expanded field of painting, the artist’s oeuvre also incorporates tiled architectures, sculptures, site-specific wall pieces, installations and set design. Collaborations are also an intrinsic part of the practice and Crowner has partnered with performance artists, choreographers, dancers and musicians, chefs, and other artists to further her interest in transforming spaces into three-dimensional experiences and in the ways in which materiality interacts with the body.
The collaborative nature of Crowner’s practice also manifests in her engagement with art history. Viewing the canon as a medium in its own right, Crowner continually reinterprets and elevates historic voices. Through the blurring of distinctions between various media and histories, Crowner simultaneously deconstructs existing narratives, and builds new ways of slow and deliberate looking.
‘Much of my work has involved an intense looking, whether it be to the willow tree outside my studio or a Richard Serra drawing, and then to take that act apart and put it back together from parts and fragments… Part of my thinking is quite practical. In the same way that tiling is a pragmatic way to cover a floor surface, so is sewing a pragmatic way to join bodies of canvas and painted color together... The laborious process – the pattern making, cutting, painting, tracing, trimming, sewing, stretching, and then undoing that and doing it all over again – is a way for me to understand painting, both in how I see the world, through the history of art, and in the abstract form itself.’
Sarah Crowner
Image: The Red Orange One (window), 2024, acrylic on canvas, sewn, 228.6 x 182.9 cm.; 90 x 72 in. Photo: Sebastian Bach
Group Exhibitions
Selected Institutional Exhibitions
Biography
VITA
1974
Born in Philadelphia, USA
1996
B.A. University of California, Santa Cruz
1999
ARCO: Centro de Art Communication Visual, Lisbon
2002
Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts, Paris
2002
M.F.A. Hunter College, City University of New York
2007–2008
Artist in Residence, Ceramics Department, Hunter College City University of New York
2008
Skopelos Foundation for Art
2019
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Captiva
2020
Rome Prize, American Academy in Rome
2022
Chinati Foundation, Marfa
Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, USA
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Art Institute of Chicago
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
The Contemporary Austin
Dallas Museum of Art
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
He Art Museum (HEM), Foshan
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Walker Center, Minneapolis
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024
Hot Light, Hard Light
Luhring Augustine Tribeca, New York
2023
The Sea, the Sky, a Window
Hill Art Foundation, New York
Around Orange
Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis
Blues in Greens / Greens in Blues
Auroras and Casa de Vidro, Instituto Bardi, São Paulo
Spring
Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm
2022
Serpentear: Lecturas Entre lo Antiguo y lo Moderno
Museo Amparo, Puebla
2021
Landscape
Kayne Griffin, Los Angeles
Plant Based
Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin
2020
Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York
2019
Paintings for the Stage
Simon Lee Gallery, Hong Kong
Post Jacaranda
Galerie Nordenhake, Mexico City
Three Concrete Sculptures
Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles
2018
Clay Bodies: Moving Through Ceramics
Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Louisville
Weeds
Casey Kaplan, New York
2016
Beetle in the Leaves
MASS MoCA, North Adams
Tutsi Baskets
Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm
Plastic Memory
Simon Lee Gallery, London
2015
Everywhere the Line is Looser
Casey Kaplan, New York
2014
Interiors
Travesia Cuatro, Guadalajara
Motifs
Galerie Catherine Bastide, Brussels
Sunday in the Park
Locust Projects, Miami
The Wave
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York
2012
Geometric Park
SAKS Galerie, Geneva
Rehearsal
Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm
2011
Acrobat, Nicelle
Beauchene Gallery, New York
Ballet Plastique
Galerie Catherine Bastide, Brussels
Zig Zags and Curves
Helena Papadopoulos, Athens
2009
Paintings and Pot
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York
2008
Handbuilt Vessels
Nice + Fit Gallery, Berlin
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
Luhring Augustine x MASA
MASA, Mexico City
2023
das gelbe Licht 6 Uhr nachmittags
Remembering, envisioning, sensing landscape, curated by Christian Malycha
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
The Future Won’t Be Long Now
Someday, New York
Presence in Absence
Gagosian, Athens
Women in Abstraction
Lawrence van Hagen, Hong Kong
2022
New Abstracts: Recent Acquisitions
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
No Forms
Hill Art Foundation, New York
2021
Cerámica Suro: A Story of Collaboration, Production, and Collecting in the Contemporary Arts
Museo de Arte de Zapopan
Contemporary Art + Design: New Acquisitions
Dallas Museum of Art
Field of Vision
Peter Blum Gallery, New York
New to the Collection
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
2020
Must Dream About Blue Tonight
Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing
Painting
Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles
Sculpture
Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles
2019
Abstract, Representational, and so forth
Gladstone Gallery, New York
Hinge Pictures: Eight Women Artists Occupy the Third Dimension
Contemporary Arts Center, New Orlean
Notebook
56 Henry, New York
2018
2018 Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts
American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York
57th Carnegie International 2018
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Clay Bodies: Moving Through Ceramics
Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft (KMAC), Louisville
Hog’s Curv
Halsey McKay, New York
Painting/Object
Flag Art Foundation, New York
2017
5KV/ 5 years of Art and Design on Kvalitár Gallery
Kvalitár Gallery, Prague
99 Cents or Less
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit
Building 6 / Summer Season
Mass MoCA, North Adams
Für Barbara
Hall Art Foundation | Kunstmuseum Schloss Derneburg
Mauvaises Herbes: Sarah Crowner, Caitlin Keogh, Paulina Olowska
Simon Lee Gallery, Hong Kong
Salon Hang
Kunstverein, Amsterdam
The Centre Cannot Hold
Near East, Istanbul
You Should Be An Artist
Galerie Catherine Bastide, Brussels
2016
If Only Bella Abzug Were Here
Marc Straus, New York
We Are Not Things
Invisible Exports, New York
2015
Faux Amis
Simon Lee Gallery, London
Matthew Brannon’s Skirting the Issue
Casey Kaplan, New York
Repetition and Difference
Jewish Museum, New York
Space Between
The Flag Art Foundation, New York
Surface Tension
The Flag Art Foundation, New York
2014
Conversation Piece
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston
From Pre-History to Post-Evening
Sean Kelly Gallery, New York
2013
Abstract Generation: Now in Print
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Beyond the Object
Brand New Gallery, Milan
DNA: Strands of Abstraction
Loretta Howard Gallery, New York
Edge, Order, Rupture
Galerie Lelong, New York
Excursus IV: Primary Information
Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia
Experienz #2, WIELS
Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels
Larry Bell and Sarah Crowner, Meet Marlow Moss
Kunstverein Amsterdam
Painter Painter
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Pathfinder: And to End
-1, Paris
Questioning the Canvas
Guekens & De Vil, Knokke
Splendor Tkaniny
Zacheta National Museum of Art, Warsaw
Work
Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York
2012
a gathering
Athens Festival
Material Occupation
University Art Museum, Albany
Surface in Volume
Luce Gallery, Turin
2011
New Shadow Old Legs
Eleven Rivington, New York
Paying A Visit to Mary Part 2
Kunstverein, Amsterdam
WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THERE IS CURRENTLY NO SPACE OR PLACE FOR ABSTRACT PAINTING
Martos Gallery, New York
2010
Creeds, Colors and Combinations
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York
Owl Stretching Time
Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin
Peter Saville’s ‘Accessory to an Artwork’
Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, East Hampton
Whitney Biennial 2010
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
2009
For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there
Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis
Cave Painting: Installment #1
Gresham’s Ghost, New York
Looking Back: The White Columns Annual
White Columns, New York
Sarah Crowner and Yiannis Moralis: Conversations Part I
Nice + Fit Gallery, Berlin
2008
Ceramics and Other Things
DAAD Galerie, Berlin
Opportunity as Community: Artists Select Artists, Part Two
Dieu Donne, New York
2006
White Columns, New York (group project with North Drive Press)
USA Issue Project Space, New York
Selected Press
Whitehot Magazine February 2024
TL Magazine January 2024
St. Louis Magazine September 2023
The Big Bend Sentinel October 2022
The Brooklyn Rail February 2021
Vogue October 2019
Vogue November 2018
The New York Times October 2018
Vogue January 2017
Guernica Mag May 2016
Architectural Digest April 2016
Walker Reader November 2012