Paula Scher: U.S.A.

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
scher-geography-and-climate
Paula Scher, U.S. Geography and Climate, 2014. Acrylic on hand-pulled silkscreen, 36¾″ × 54⅛″.

U.S.A., a new exhibition of Paula Scher’s map art, opened last week at the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in New York. From the press release:

For this exhibition, Scher has created a body of large-scale cartographic paintings focusing on the United States. Paintings as tall as seven feet depict the country swirling in torrents of information and undulating with colorful layers of hand-painted boundary lines, place names, and commentary. Different sets of data—population demographics, transportation flows, geography, and climate—are employed to make connections and establish patterns. While the information can in no way be interpreted as literal fact, the expression of it demonstrates a personalized understanding of the diversity of the United States.

The exhibition runs until March 26. More on the exhibition from Slate and Mental Floss. The New Yorker has a new profile of Paula Scher, a renowned graphic designer who’s been painting these distinctive maps in her spare time.

scher-mapsA book of her map art, Paula Scher: MAPS, was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2011.

Previously: New Paula Scher Exhibition; Paula Scher: The Maps.