Interdisciplinary artist Paula Crown (MFA 2012) explores place and landscape in her work. From the sweeping landscapes of her AFRICA: Helicopter Drawings to the fractured fractals of her first solo exhibition, Crown fuses traditional and contemporary media to evoke terrain that is both real and imaginary.

Crown’s monumental interactive installation TRANSPOSITION: Over Many Miles occupied 3,200 square feet of Miami’s design district during Art Basel Miami Beach 2014. The geometric composition of the space was based on Crown’s AFRICA: Helicopter Drawings and PERforation, a three-dimensional wooden sculpture of the torn edges of her sketchbook paper.

To realize a vision of this scale, Crown scanned her Africa ink drawings, altered the scale, and re-created parts of the work with a 3D printer. She then collaborated with Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates and acclaimed architect Jeanne Gang to construct the environment from reclaimed wood, tempered glass, synthetic grass, metal, local plantings, and sand.

In February 2015, Crown expanded her exploration in her first solo exhibition in New York City. The Sublime and the Center: Dimensions of Landscape at Marlborough Gallery featured landscapes and PERforations reduced to their essence—an exploration of new and expanded forms, materials, dimensions, and Beautiful/Work.