Artist Sarah Crowner often looks to geometric abstraction, nature, and modernist architecture to find inspiration for her work, which ranges from colorful, collaged-together paintings to set design and three-dimensional sculptures.

The organic, bulbous shapes of these two benches reference abstract tree forms found in the sketches of Paulo Mendes da Rocha, an iconic Brazilian architect known for his innovative use of concrete. Crowner says that she was interested in “turning soft botanical forms . . . into the architect’s medium, concrete.” Colored in pastel blue and gray, these interactive sculptures are an abstraction of those natural lines and patterns, resulting in shapes that explore “the bird’s-eye view of the pieces, the flattening, and then making them three-dimensional again.”

Visitors are invited to sit on these benches, and to explore more closely the playful shapes and combination of positive and negative spaces.