Sarah Crowner

Brooklyn-based artist Sarah Crowner is recognized for her innovative large scale paintings that test the boundaries of geometric abstraction while engaging in its art historical legacy. She has been making art since the 1990s, and her paintings using a craft-oriented process of cutting and sewing the canvas to create abstract forms—along with the bodies of work that followed—have garnered her much attention. 

Moving to New York from California, Crowner said she chose Hunter College because, “I felt at the time that the best place to be a young artist was New York, and in a lot of ways it still is. Hunter had it all—proximity to galleries and museums, relatively affordable tuition, and most important to me was the option to get my MFA part time. It took three and a half years, and because of that I was able to support myself living in the city at the same time. I don't think I could have done that in a private school.” 

Graduating with an MFA in 2002, Crowner recalls being offered a ceramics residency at the Hunter College studio in 2006, which propelled her into new experimental modes of art making. Recent work includes installations of her paintings hung on the walls, and a ceramic tiled stage-like platform replacing the floor for viewers to walk on. She has shown work internationally, and in 2016 had her first solo exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, Massachusetts. Other significant recent projects include a 2022 solo exhibition at Museo Amparo in Puebla, Mexico, as well as a 2022 commission by the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, for a site-specific tile installation that will remain on view into 2024. Crowner’s work has also been featured in a number of group exhibitions, including the Whitney Biennial 2010, New York; Abstract Generation: Now in Print, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013); Excursus IV: Primary Information, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2013); Painter Painter, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2013); Conversation Piece, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2014); and the Carnegie International Exhibition, 57th Edition (2018).