Announcing Victoria Miro Projects with a solo presentation by Sarah Cain

Launching 28 January 2022, Victoria Miro Projects is a dynamic series of online presentations by invited international artists in a specially conceived gallery on Vortic Collect. The inaugural project, Or is it because the problem is beautiful to me, features new works by Los Angeles-based artist Sarah Cain on view until 2 April 2022.  

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Sarah Cain expands the traditional notion of painting within the frame by exploring abstraction and spatial interventions in a wide range of media and found materials. Leading a way into new territories of abstraction, Cain moves fluidly between works on site and her object-based studio practice. While the diversity of her materials (including paint, collaged beads, glitter, stained glass and readymade objects) makes each work unique, Cain’s practice is unified through her meditative, of-the-moment and personal approach to transforming the individual experience into a universal poetry. 

Itself a song lyric, the presentation’s title ‘sums up a lot of my painting practice’. Spanning works on paper, experimental paintings on canvas, public art projects and large-scale site-specific works, Cain’s practice is ‘very much based in the real’; fusing the aesthetic with the cultural and political in intimate and collective viewing experiences. In a recent New York Times feature Cain’s work was described as ‘a really provocative combination of pleasure and politics.’

She likens her approach to working on site to that of touring musicians: ‘There’s a present tense explosion that happens in the works on site, so much energy is created so fast. I then take that back with me to the studio and imbed it into the objects.’  Music is an important catalyst to this body of work, directly informing the titles of these paintings: ‘I like to listen to things on repeat to the point where the songs open a space in my mind so the paintings can pour out.’ For Cain, ‘Painting is an act of searching, wading through complex thoughts, and translating the world around us.’

About the artist

Sarah Cain was born in Albany, New York, in 1979. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

In 2021, Cain’s work was the subject of solo exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, New York; and The Momentary, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Solo presentations of her work have previously been staged at Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California; the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado; and the Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh, North Carolina.

In addition, her work has been included in several museum group exhibitions including Variations: Conversations in and around Abstract Painting, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California (2014); Now-ism: Abstraction Today, Pizzuti Collection, Ohio (2014); Outside The Lines, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas (2013); and Gold, Imperial Belvedere Palace Museum, Austria (2012).

Her work is included in museum collections including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin; Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College, New York; North Carolina Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California; and San Antonio Museum of Art, Texas.

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Image: Sarah Cain, Tidal Wave, 2022

Acrylic, beads made from stones and shells, imitation silver leaf, acrylic on canvas

177.8 x 152.4 x 5.1 cm
70 x 60 x 2 in

© Sarah Cain

Courtesy the artist