Sarah Cain (b. 1979, Albany, New York) is an artist living and work in Los Angeles, CA. She earned her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA in 2001 and her MFA from the University of California at Berkeley in 2006. Cain paints exuberant abstractions that often extend beyond the canvas into installations, site-specific painting, stained glass, and furniture. Cain’s painting embraces a strategically intuitive power that both undermines and expands our expectations of what has been historically considered “serious” painting. She redefines abstraction in feminist terms as an architecture for transformative, embodied, emotive experience.

Recent solo exhibitions include To — you know—you, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA (2025-2027), Day after day on this beautiful stage, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA (2023); hand in hand, Colby Museum of Art, Waterville, ME (2022); My favorite season is the fall of the patriarchy, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (2021), and In Nature, Momentary of Crystal, Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AR (2020). Her work can be found in numerous public collections, including National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL; and Stanford Health Center, Palo Alto, CA; among others.

Artist website