Greetings Professionals and Institutions!
Welcome to my online portfolio designed especially for current school applications.

Below starts off with an essay question, followed by selected pieces - both studies from institutions and professional work, and ending with my (ever shifting) artist statement and curriculum vitae.

The link to this page is hidden - so you'll have to type it into your browser for access. 

Enjoy,
Sydney 

​Please use this opportunity to give us an understanding of who you are as a person, artist, and student. What inspires you? What challenges you?

    I am constantly presented with the question from others: who are you? It is a question I feel we are all asked to answer from adolescence until our final breaths. And even while finally writing this, after many days of  brick visions, my answer is ever changing and incomplete. I am confronted with my own anxieties of choosing the right words and sentence structure to express who I am to a stranger who has the ability to make a decision intertwined with my future movements. These thoughts from the heart I share with you is the only way I can begin to tell you about myself .

I am Sydney Cain, born and raised in San Francisco, CA whose family still resides there. In the eyes of society, I am a short, black woman- child with a field of uncertain intimidation surrounding her. In the eyes of myself, I am a daughter and sister of 26 years, a creator, who has an unshakable purpose in the world. One that is currently founded on my love to create, draw, dream, and change.

My current decision to obtain my BFA comes from a great reflection on my relationship with art. In 2012, I made the decision to abruptly stop attending my college courses. My experience as a student and person was not healthy nor focused. Coming out of an abusive relationship, I met a collective of artists in Oakland, CA and decided to nurture my craft. This led to an abundance of resources within the Bay Area artist community.

Without giving too much detail, so far, my alleged impetuous decision led to two solo exhibitions, a list of group shows including San Francisco City Hall, San Francisco Public Library, Richmond Art Center,  SOMArts Cultural Center; Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Mural Projects with Attitudinal Healing and San Francisco Arts Commision; and Artist Residencies with Residencia Gorila in Tulum, Mexico and Signal Fire in Portland, Oregon.   

Most recently, I was chosen to work with San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition as a feature artist for San Francisco’s Municipal Transit Agency Ads. My intention with the project was to pay homage to the neighborhood I was raised in and where my family still resides - Fillmore - an historically black neighborhood deemed “Harlem of the West”.  Because as you may see from my artist statement, ancestral reverence is tantamount in my work. The opportunity made me realise that it wasn’t the first time my work would be on public transit, but the third - although grade school students -  first as a model, second as an artist.

I share to tell that it is the cumulative experiences along my life's road, that have made me who I am. Many of these experiences not written on paper, but rather drawn or painted. They show up through conversations with blank canvases. About how images create our realities About why art is an active engagement of healing rather than an exclusive form of aesthetics to my people. And finally, about how to continue that legacy.
As I’ve been allotted to experience freedom and build up my foundation and spirit, I’m now looking to form a structure. If I’d obtained my BFA five years ago, I don't believe I’d be “better off” in the present. Instead, I believe . Despite my slight embarrassment of my transcript at Cal State University East Bay, I am elated at the strength of my will to follow my own path despite social pressures. Too often we suffocate our human dreams and curiosities in order to do the things “the correct way”.  I’m now ready to create and grow alongside my peers in a university environment with a more humble mind and intent than ever. Because although what we do reflects who we are-it is only that-a reflection. There is much more to know about me.  

school assignments:

Figure Drawing - 5min gestures - City College of San Francisco. charcoal on paper. 2017

Figure Drawing - 5min gestures - City College of San Francisco. ink on paper. 2017

Figure Drawing - 5min gestures - City College of San Francisco. ink on paper. 2017

Figure Drawing - 10min study - City College of San Francisco. ink & charcoal on paper. 2017

Figure Drawing - 15min study - City College of San Francisco. charcoal & water on paper. 2017

Figure Drawing - 40min study - City College of San Francisco, charcoal on paper. 2017

Figure Drawing - 40min study - City College of San Francisco. ink & charcoal on paper. 2017

Drawing- Cal State Univ. East Bay - charcoal on paper, 2010

Drawing- Cal State Univ. East Bay - ink on paper, 2010

2-D Design at City College of San Francisco - pen, sumi ink, acrylic, collage, graphite 11x14" 2017

personal work:

For Love (Elijah) 6x6” graphite on Rives BFK 2017

For His Truth (God’s Eye) 6x6” graphite on Rives BFK 2017

Untitled 8"x20" graphite on Rives BFK 2017

HeLa: How Many Times Must We Die Until We Are Allowed to Live? graphite on paper. 36"x96", 2016

details of HeLa: How Many Times Must We Die Until We Are Allowed to Live?

Artist Statement

Sydney Sage Stargate Cain is a visual artist born and raised in San Francisco, Ca. Her work has been a reflection of an unseen reality we all live in. Her style and use of materials varies between  graphite, ink, oil, mixed media and murals. Her work focuses on the everlasting, and sometimes suppressed, spirit of self. as a descendant of the African diaspora while growing up in the “Information Age”. Through her art, organic elements resurface lost and stolen myths of the ancients and futurists. She believes artist are provided to assist us in dismantling the disharmonious colonial cosmograms that have attempted to confine our consciousness. She hopes that her work inspires others to create new realms of their own.



Curriculum Vitae

Solo Exhibitions
September 2017
Cloud of Witnesses - with Jarrel Phillips - Omi Gallery, Oakland, CA
March 2016
Always Here - Omi Gallery, Oakland, CA
August 2013
Cosmograms: Visions of Black Matter – Betti Ono Gallery, Oakland, CA

Selected Group Exhibitions
September 2017
Distance ≠ Time - IceBox Project Space - Philadelphia, PA
July 2016
The Black Woman Is God: Reprogramming That God Code – SOMArts – San Francisco, CA
December 2015
Psychedelic Inhibitions – Luggage Store Projects San Francisco, CA
October 2015
Today is the Shadow of Tomorrow: Dia de los Muertos - SOMArts - San Francisco, CA
July 2015
Making a Scene: 50 Years of Alternative Bay Area Spaces - SOMArts - San Francisco, CA
March 2015
Black Artist on Art – Oakstop Gallery – Oakland,CA
February 2015
The Art of Living Black – Richmond Art Center – Richmond, CA
May 2014
Beacons – Faultline Artspace, Oakland, CA
April 2014
Origins – Rock Paper Scissors, Oakland, CA
March 2014
The Black Woman Is God – San Francisco Public Library
February 2014
The Rejection Project: Catharsis – Big Umbrella Studios, San Francisco, CA
November 2014
Oya: Mother of 9 – Oakland, CA
September 2013
R/EVOLVE: Faith Art Exhibition – Oakland City Hall
June 2013
Creative Intelligence and Desire - MyGroove Designs, Inc. Oakland, CA
May 2013
The Third Mind - Big Umbrella Studios San Francisco, CA
February 2013
Black Woman is God – African American Art and Culture Complex San Francisco, CA
Black Bucket Base – House of the Rising Sun, San Francisco, CA
Innovators - Warehouse 416 Oakland, CA
January 2013
Alpha Omega Collective - Ear Peace Records Berkeley, CA
December 2012
Lucid Dreams - Betti Ono Oakland, CA
Small Art Show – Warehouse 416 Oakland, CA
November 2012
Breathe Easy - Ear Peace Records Berkeley, CA
San Francisco Green Festival Art Installation- San Francisco, CA
Life is Living Art Installation with Betti Ono Gallery - Oakland, CA
September 2012
Endless Canvas: Special Delivery– Inkwell Factory Berkeley, CA
Visual Codex - Black Faun Galley Eureka, CA
May 2012
Symbiosis Festival - Pyramid Lake, NV 
The Exodus, The Migration, The Stand - African American Art and Culture Complex San Francisco, CA

Artist Residencies 
June, 2016
Signal Fire: Unwalking the West – Portland, OR
April, 2016
Residencia Gorila – Tulum, Mexico
 
Panel Discussions/ Artist Lectures
2013
Transitions on Traditions, KPFA Radio, August 12
Black Artist in San Francisco Panel Discussion, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

2012
Exodus Panel Discussion, African American Art and Culture Complex, San Francisco, CA

Publications
Black Dandelion by Sasha Kelly for C-Proof, 2013
Art For Change by Sarah Rewers for San Francisco Foghorn, Feb 2013
Art, Kids, and Institutions: A Brief Memoir of Teaching by Richard Olsen, 2011

Awards
Seven Tepees Leadership Award – Founders Grant, 2007

Education
Gateway High School, San Francisco, CA – H.S. Diploma, 2005-2009