Sarah Cain: Sarah Cain

Sarah Cain

October 6 - November 4, 2023

Broadway is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new mixed-media paintings, stained glass, works on paper, and a site-responsive intervention by Los Angeles artist Sarah Cain. 

As is typical of the artist, the show is a multi-valent exploration of color, materiality and variable scale—the latest iteration of an ever-expanding, totalizing approach.  Working from the intimate, handheld scale of her $talisman series (made directly on dollar bills) to monumental public works in stained glass and painted architectural pieces (recently installed at San Francisco International Airport, Stanford Hospital, Orange Barrel Media Headquarters and forthcoming at the LA Metro Century City Station) Cain brings an equalizing dynamism and attention to detail to each format. 

In a first for Broadway, Cain includes two new domestically-scaled stained glass works. The brightly hued panes, additionally embedded with faceted glass “jewel” formations, allows for a dramatic expansion of her color drenched practice as light is refracted through them.

The paintings display a controlled delirium of angular zags and swooshing curves and are similarly festooned with found objects of humble yet jubilant origin. Rope, beads, prisms, string, and gold leafing complicate flat planes of pure color with a touch of found-object energy, adding sculpture to the conversation and pointing to the artist’s larger site-responsive interaction. This inclination is represented here by the freestyle transformation of the gallery’s steel columns in multicolored paint. The effect cleverly calls attention to TriBeCa’s signature structural detail and showcases Cain’s sensitive yet boundless approach to artmaking.

Sarah Cain earned her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her MFA in studio art from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2006, Cain attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Cain has had solo exhibitions at the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA; Colby Museum of Art, Waterville, ME; the Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY; The Momentary (at Crystal Bridges Museum of Art) Bentonville, AR; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO; Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA; Los Angeles Nomadic Division, Los Angeles, CA; CAM Raleigh, Raleigh, NC; and the San Francisco Art Commission, San Francisco, CA. Additionally, Cain has participated in numerous institutional group exhibitions, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; among others. Cain’s work is held in numerous public and private collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Perez Art Museum Miami; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; UBS Art Collection; and the Zabludowicz Collection, London. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Vogue, Town & Country, Los Angeles Times, Artforum, Architectural Digest, and Art in America.