Editor’s Picks

“Slide past the ticket desk, down to the atrium, and into the beaming color summoned by artist Sarah Cain at BAMPFA, a triumphant homecoming for the Berkeley grad. One of the artist’s legendary ‘works-on-site’, Cain splashes painting’s chromatic play and abstract spirit into the third dimension. Here geometric radiance confetti bursts into feral brushstrokes. Lean back into one of the slathered sofas on offer and let all that hot chroma wash over you while the light pours through the triangle window and the triangle stained glass tucked tenderly into its frame.”

-Andrew Berardini

About the Exhibition

In the Barbara and Gerson Bakar Atrium at BAMPFA, painter Sarah Cain (b. 1979, Albany, New York; lives and works in Los Angeles) presents the site-specific installation To—you know—you. Returning to UC Berkeley, where she received her MFA in 2006, the artist continues her intuitive approach to painting, improvising the installation on-site at the museum. Cain’s distinct visual vernacular draws from a panoply of styles and gestures from art history, popular culture, and everywhere in between, which fearlessly intersect in unexpected ways. Defying painterly and patriarchal conventions, Cain infuses the long and often rigid history of painting with a playful irreverence and freedom.

To—you know—you stretches across the atrium’s wall and floor, enveloping the space in vibrant swaths of color. The installation also includes painted canvases, furniture for viewers to sit upon, and a triangular stained glass window inserted into BAMPFA’s existing architecture. Cain took her title from the dedication in poet Diane Seuss’s book frank: sonnets (2021), which indicates a direct and intimate connection with her readers. Cain’s installation likewise offers a site of respite and reflection for museum visitors who might connect through a shared understanding and experience of her work.