Intersections
A Public Art Exhibition
Caroline Bowen
Caroline Bowen is a sculptor specializing in math and physics visualizations living in the Tennessee foothills of the Smoky Mountains. After starting college as an art major in 2008 and then a long story involving the April 27, 2011, Superstorm, she ultimately graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 2016 with a double major in math and academic physics, a 2D studio art minor, and her first Bridges Math Art Conference under her belt. She has been an active member of the international math art community ever since. In November 2024, she began pursuing a third bachelor’s degree in computer science online through the University of the People with intentions of adding a third, relatively unexplored new muse to her collection as well as pursuing a career in scientific and data visualization engineering and design. When not making math art, studying, or working at her day jobs in the family machine shop and as an AI trainer, she can be found out in her woods waging war against the invasive plant enemy, foraging, documenting wildflower species, collecting cool dead bugs, and trying to identify that one weird bird call.
Artwork
Orion
3D-printed PLA, fishing line, Swarovski pearls, jewelry crimp beads, glue
7.5" x 7.5" x 7.5"
$300
Something many people have never stopped to think about is that constellations aren't flat - in truth, they're really the product of both the projective geometry of a 3D arrangement of unrelated stars from our perspective here on earth and our human interpretation of it as shapes or outlines. Viewed from most angles, the 3D arrangement of pearls inside this cube appears seemingly random, but it isn't. This is how 19 different stars in our sky are actually arranged in 3D space, albeit with their distances compressed, since in reality they span between 26 to 1,801 lightyears from our planet. But when these pearls are viewed head-on from the front of the cube, marked with a recessed circle in the top left corner, they align to form a familiar shape: Orion as we've interpreted them for thousands of years.