Anthony Meier is pleased to present Quiet riot, a solo exhibition of new work by Los Angeles-based artist Sarah Cain.

Curling and draping, beaded and bursting, in these fresh paintings pools of color simmer and explode into angles that shiver with glitter.

A suite of canvases swerve from the walls, a mobile of talismans wave with prosperity, and a work on site swallows the floor with its surge of color.

All of it a spirited dance through the grind and joy, politics and pain of life, with plenty of feline licks and not one of dogma. The small jokes, the big emotions, moments of golden admiration and graffiti’ed frustration, all poured through the time and effort of making that loosens into freedom, all the effort that sets the stage for effortless action, a tap into the transformation that underlies reality.

Oft described as “exuberant”, the work of Sarah Cain is more than just lively but alive. The practice of the everyday transcribed with color and material. A palette that eats tacky and sentiment and prejudice and spits color into the face of power.

Follow the rainbow of Cain’s storied career into this curve and you’ll see her rebellious sprays and pigments ascend and blossom. A sharpening skill, a refined confidence that learns with each painting how to better release.

And certainly these paintings are riotous. A multitude that refuses complacency, but a riot that can only be summoned and maintained by the meditations of this singular painter, laying it on thick, day-by-day, as she quietly works her way forward. Whether in perception or politics, progress like this can only be made by a billion women and one.

(Text by Andrew Berardini)

Sarah Cain (b. 1979, Albany, NY; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2001 from The San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco, CA and a Masters of Fine Arts in 2006 from the University of California at Berkeley, CA. Amongst many site specific installations and group exhibitions, Cain has exhibited widely with solo presentations at institutions including: Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME; Henry Museum, Seattle, WA; Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; The Momentary, Bentonville, IL; Museum of Contemporary Art Raleigh, Raleigh, NC; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C; Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum Bloom Projects, Santa Barbara, CA; Tang Teaching Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY.

Selected public collections include Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, TX; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC; The Margulies Collection, Miami, FL; The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C; Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, CA; Perez Art Museum, Miami, FL; Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH; San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX; Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, NY; UBS Art Collection; and the Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK.

Additionally, she is a recipient of the 2020 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant; 2011 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant; the 2008 Durfee Grant; the 2007 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant; and the 2006 SECA Art Award, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.