CAM Raleigh (Contemporary Art Museum) is pleased to present The Imaginary Architecture of Love by Sarah Cain. Cain will create a monumental painting directly on the walls and floor of the 4,000 square foot space. As is typical of her practice, Cain will embed objects found in situ and layer paintings made on traditional stretched canvases within the work.

Cain is committed to translating lived experience into a language of color and form. Her investment in abstraction is based on her belief in its capacity to express ideas that are beyond language. Building upon a present tense call-and- response to the environment at hand, Cain attempts to expand the potential of painting by challenging its conventions. In advance of making a work on site, Cain gathers materials, inspiration, and visual cues from the outside world. Through improvisation based on her gathered materials and impressions, she makes decisions about the palette, gestures, and composition on site. The Imaginary Architecture of Love will flow from the museum’s entrance lobby into the main gallery, moving through the former produce warehouse’s corners and cracks while responding to structural details such as arched windows and poured-in-place columns.

As with collaged found objects in her paintings, the titles of Cain’s works are derived from her immediate experience of the world. The Imaginary Architecture of Love is a song from HUSH HUSH’s album Pisces Iscariot. Cain’s studio based paintings and ephemeral works on site often deal with human intimacy and relationships. The Imaginary Architecture of Love refers to the ways in which peoples’ expectations and intentions build structures around relationships that inevitably transform over time. For this exhibition, Cain will create abstract portraits of the complex dynamics of navigating both architectural and emotional spaces.

The exhibition includes a 100-page monograph titled Sarah Cain: The Imaginary Architecture of Love. Designed by Barbara Wiedemann, the catalogue is focused on Cain’s recent site specific work created in the past three years. It includes more than 75 full color illustrations accompanied by new writing by Julian Myers, Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, and Bernadette Mayer.