Sarah Cain: Loud Object

PRESS RELEASE

Sarah Cain: LOUD OBJECT

12 July – 16 August 2013

Opening reception: Thursday, 11 July, 6 to 8 pm*

Anthony Meier Fine Arts is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by artist Sarah Cain. Exhibiting at the gallery for the third time, Cain debuts a series of works on canvas highlighting her unique blending of abstract experimentation with layered dimension and collaged materials.

The ability to merge opposing elements without diminishing their individual attributes is a cornerstone of Sarah Cain’s practice.  In synchronized dreaming, Cain places multiple imperfectly horizontal cardboard panels across the canvas surface to create a look of ramshackle hardwood flooring. The cardboard panels are then painted into square sections and covered loosely in a mix of spattered paint, gold leaf, prisms and screws. The step-by-step movement from layer to layer holds reign on the piece,  keeping a balance between the chaotic and the controlled.

This balance between chaotic and controlled is also seen in the duality between Sarah Cain’s work and her personal experience.  The objects embedded in Cain’s canvases are sourced from her own daily movements, directly or indirectly.  Title word associations, always extant, span from transparent to opaque. The life of the painter and the life of the painting are inherently intertwined.

*complimentary valet parking

…

Dear viewer,

Please take your time, look and breathe.

The title LOUD OBJECT is borrowed from Clarice Lispector’s working title for her book
Agua Viva, a book that moves along racing, slowing, observing, sharing, jumping back and forth between thoughts, descriptions, and feelings. A book you can enter at any point and leave just as easily, taking away as much as you like. LOUD OBJECT reminds me of what paintings should be.

The old question with painting is that of WHY PAINT? To answer I feel you are going to have to TAKE A STAND. As a woman I conflate the phrase TAKING A STAND with TAKING UP SPACE. It dawned on me today that my paintings are undeniable extensions of my body. Much of my work comes from a combination of conflict and love: these paintings are working through the conflict and joy of existing in a body.

“I describe the way and meanwhile I am proceeding along it.” - Hilma af Klint

“to think of poems as objects” – Bernadette Mayer

They come from life, move through it, and into the future

Let’s hold these paintings to being poems
Objectness fleeting and held
Soft hands with big shoes

Talking it out,
These paintings translate a personal poetry
into something larger

A spirited guidance

Listen well the first time
As they will not repeat themselves

Engendered from the body

Extensions of the physical
Mental and the mystic

LOUD OBJECT
claim space
create sound

smc 2013