Caroline Bowen
I graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with my bachelors in math and academic physics in 2016 after starting college as an art major. My primary goal as an artist is to make abstract, cerebral concepts in mathematical physics and analysis into concrete, tangible objects in order to share the mathematical beauty I have seen through my studies with others. My time not spent creating sculptures is spent at my day job in a machine shop or wandering around and doing conservation work on my family's land in the foothills of Great Smoky Mountain National Park.
Something many people have never thought to think about, but seems obvious once pointed out, is that constellations aren't flat. The shapes we see here on earth are a product of our perspective of wholly unrelated stars, spread out over hundreds of light-years in three dimensions. This piece depicts the stars of Orion in 3D using different sizes of Swarovski pearls, dyed with alcohol ink and dip coated in custom-made nail polishes to represent each star's individual color temperature, that are held in position with fishing line anchored to a 3D printed frame. When viewed from the front, the star beads form a familiar shape, but they devolve into a seemingly random configuration as the viewer looks at the cube from different angles.