Sarah Cain is an American

contemporary artist Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic co ...

Life

Cain was born in

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York Ci ...

, and grew up in nearby Kinderhook. She moved to California in 1997 to study art at the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximatel ...

, where she received her BFA in 2001. She went on to study at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, receiving her MFA in studio art and attended the

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 t ...

in 2006.

Work

Cain uses a variety of materials, including traditional canvas, stretcher bars, and paint, as well as less common artifacts, including musical notations, leaves and branches. Quinn Latimer described Cain's work: "They court seemingly bad ideas—drawings sport feathers and doilies; installations feature eggs and hippy art teacher-like fabric swatches—and then transform them so deftly into serious painting that it can take a minute to understand what you’re looking at." In 2011, Cain collaborated with George Herms at the

Orange County Museum of Art The Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located on the campus of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California. The museum's collection comprises more than 4,500 objects, with a concentration ...

, where the curator Sarah Bancroft wrote for the accompanying catalog that the two artists share "an interest in language and a frustration over its limits in describing abstract work". She has had solo exhibitions at

Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA), formerly known as the Santa Monica Museum of Art (SMMoA), is a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, CA. As an independent and non-collecting art museum (or kunsthalle), it exhibits the ...

, the

Aspen Art Museum Founded in 1979, the Aspen Art Museum (AAM) is a non-collecting contemporary art museum located in Aspen, Colorado. AAM exhibitions include drawings, paintings, sculptures, multimedia installations and electronic media. Aspen Art Museum Buildin ...

San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (or MCASD), in San Diego, California, US, is an art museum focused on the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of works of art from 1950 to the present. Mission The stated mission of ...

, amongst others. And has been included in collective exhibitions at

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 196 ...

, Imperial Belvedere Palace Museum in Vienna, and the

Busan Biennale The Busan Biennale is a biannual international contemporary art show held in Busan, South Korea. Busan Biennale is held in even-numbered years, and is hosted by Busan metropolitan city and Busan Biennale Organizing Committee. Exhibition his ...

. In 2019, she completed her first major permanent public work at San Francisco International Airport: a 150-foot stained glass window with 270 colors, framed in soldered zinc, which was "painstakingly arranged so that no two adjoining fragments are the same shade." Poet

Bernadette Mayer Bernadette Mayer (May 12, 1945 – November 22, 2022) was an American poet, writer, and visual artist associated with both the Language poets and the New York School. Early life and education Bernadette Mayer was born in a predominantly Ge ...

in her poem "Dear Sarah", described a painting by the artist as "it's like seeing a rainbow in the middle of the forest."

Selected exhibitions

*''Sarah Cain: My Favorite Season is the Fall of the Patriarcy'', National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC , 2021 *Sarah Cain: Opener 33 - Enter the Center, the Tang Museum at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, 2021 *Sarah Cain: In Nature, The Momentary at the Crystal Bridges Art Museum, Bentonville, AR, 2021 *''Sarah Cain,'' Aspen Art Museum at the Elk Camp on Snowmass Mountain, CO, 2017 *''Sarah Cain: Now I'm going to tell you everything,'' Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA), CA, 2017 *''Sarah Cain: The Imaginary Architecture of Love'' at Contemporary Art Museum Raleigh, Raleigh, NC, 2015 *''Sarah Cain: blue in your body, red when it hits the air'' at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 2015 *''Painting in Place'', Los Angeles Nomadic Division, Los Angeles, CA, 2013 *''Gold'', Curated by Thomas Zaunschirm, Imperial Belvedere Palace Museum, Vienna, 2012 *''SECA Art Award Exhibition'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, 2007 *''Sarah Cain: I Believe We Are Believers'', Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA, 2006 *''Sarah Cain:'' ''A River of If's'', Queens Nails Annex, San Francisco, CA, 2005

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cain, Sarah American contemporary painters 1979 births Living people 20th-century American painters 21st-century American painters Artists from Los Angeles Artists from Albany, New York UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni San Francisco Art Institute alumni 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists American women painters Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alumni Sculptors from California Sculptors from New York (state)